


Fractured Reflection

by IJM



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Original Character Death(s), Potential Emotional Triggers, Recreational Drug Use, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-05-29 13:49:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19401607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IJM/pseuds/IJM
Summary: Diving into the Depths of the Darkness of DID





	1. Recreationally Drugged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rkarena59](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rkarena59/gifts).



> I did focused research on DID in graduate school. Few soap tropes annoy me more than bad DID stories. So, I present to you a bad DID story. 
> 
> Not for profit. No claim of ownership of characters.

“What are you doing?” Joss asked, seeing Cam take a capsule and dump the contents into the cup of coffee Franco had left unattended when he went upstairs to check on Aiden who was sick with a summer cold.

“Just an experiment,” Cam answered. He stirred the coffee and tossed the spoon into the sink.

“What is that?” Joss asked, concerned. “And where did you get it?”

“It’s called truth-be-told,” Cam answered. “And Trina got it from a friend of hers.”

“That doesn’t tell me what it is. And why are you putting it in Franco’s coffee? Is it illegal?”

“I don’t really know,” he shrugged. “I was talking to Trina about how I never know exactly who Franco is and whether I can trust him or not. And she said she’d heard about this new stuff that people are using and like blabbing about everything. It’s just a party game.”

“It’s like illegal, and insane!” Joss corrected him. She picked up the mug and was going to pour the contents into the sink when Cam took it from her.

Cam was holding the coffee when Franco came back downstairs. He immediately said, “I was going to heat this back up because you were gone so long.” He put it in the microwave. “How is Aiden?”

Franco looked surprised. “Oh, uh, thank you. He’s about the same. He still has a fever and is miserable. I told him to rest and keep drinking cold water, as much as he could, for now. It’s too soon to give him any more medicine for the fever.”

Cam got the coffee out of the microwave and gave it to his stepfather. Joss looked at him sternly but didn’t speak up to stop him.

“It’s too hot for coffee, isn’t it?” Joss asked. “Cam and I could run to Perks and get us all some iced coffee. Would you like that?”

“I appreciate the offer,” Franco told her. “But I’m trying to cut back on sugar and iced coffee without sugar is… as bad as hot coffee without sugar,” he made a face as he tasted the bitter black coffee. “I think this is actually more bitter than it was when I first made it.”

“You want a diet soda?” Joss asked, opening the refrigerator door. She got one for herself and another she offered to Franco.

“Word on the street is that artificial sweetener is worse than real sugar,” he shrugged. “Thanks though.”

Joss gave Cam another austere look and whispered, “Stop him,” as Franco walked away with the coffee. Of all times for Franco to be concerned with his diet!

“This could be fun,” Cam told her.

“It could be dangerous,” she argued.

There was a small console desk in the living area where Franco went to go through the mail. Once he finished that by throwing most of the items into the garbage can, he started reconciling the joint bank account he shared with Elizabeth. He was absorbed in the task and didn’t notice the tension between Cam and Joss. He assumed they were watching a movie on the increasingly loud television.

Cam was really watching Franco and Joss was glaring at Cam. She didn’t want to be a part of this, but she didn’t want to leave in case Franco had a bad reaction.

He put his pencil down and looked around the room, puzzled. “Did you hear that?” he asked the teens.

Cam turned down the volume on the television. “Hear what?” He had to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

“I’m not sure,” Franco said. He remained perplexed by the noise. He walked through the room, into the kitchen, and came back to the couch looking for a source. “Don’t you hear that?”

“What does it sound like?” Cam asked.

Franco couldn’t quite find a correct answer. “Maybe… like rain on a tin roof? It’s not supposed to rain today.” He looked out the nearest window. “What is that?” It was driving him mad.

“Our roof isn’t tin,” Cam reminded him.

Franco shook his head. “Maybe I’m getting a migraine.”

“Try a cold compress,” Joss suggested quickly, fearing he might take a medication that would interact with whatever Cam had given him. “I’ll get an icepack,” she offered. She had been spending a lot of time with Cam over the summer and Elizabeth and Franco had made her feel comfortable enough to act like she was in her own home. She brought the ice pack wrapped in a small towel.

He thanked her and held it to his neck. He sat in the closest chair.

Joss noticed his eyes looked glassy. “You need to call your mom,” she whispered to her friend. “If he’s hallucinating sounds, you don’t know what might happen next. This is stupid, Cameron.”

“Cam, check on Aiden,” Franco mumbled. He dropped the ice pack, his head drooped, and he passed out or fell asleep. The teens weren’t sure which.

Cam was disappointed. “He fell asleep? That’s it? Damn. I thought he’d start rambling like Trina said he would.”

“You better hope he’s _just_ asleep,” Joss said at her normal volume.

“He’s breathing,” Cam said, pointing out that his chest was moving up and down.

“You got lucky,” Joss told him. “I can’t believe you would do something so stupid, especially while you’re still on probation. Why are you so suspicious? Every time you thought he was doing something wrong he was working undercover or whatever.”

“He’s not forthcoming about his past.”

“Didn’t he tell you everything was online in public records?”

“Not that stuff. He’s always guarded.”

“Maybe he has a good reason,” Joss snapped. She left Cameron to check on Aiden who was asleep at that time.

Cam approached Franco and shook his shoulder. “Hey, wake up,” he said.

Franco protested with an indistinguishable cluster of muttered syllables.

“I said wake up,” Cam raised his voice.

Franco’s consciousness floated. He feared what he would see when he opened his eyes, so he only opened one. Just enough to obey the man who was so angry. The face he saw appeared in waves. The moustache, the mouth, the eyes… the evil eyes. “No,” he whimpered. “No more. Please stop.”

“I’m just trying to get you to wake up,” Cam told him.

“You’re hurting me,” Franco’s voice was soft. “Stop hurting me.”

“What are you doing to him?” Joss asked, angrily. “You need to stop!”

Franco was terrified when he heard the female voice. “No, mama. I’m not bad. I’m not. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Great! He thinks I’m his mother,” Joss exclaimed, causing Cam to laugh. She had a better understanding than Cam did that this was not a humorous situation. “Look, we have to get him to throw up or something.”

“What good would that do?” Cam asked. “He’s already out in La La Land.”

“Maybe he hasn’t got the full affect. You don’t even know what that was.”

“Fine,” Cam was petulant. “How do you propose we get him to throw up?”

“I don’t know,” Joss shrugged.

“He thinks you’re his mama. Just order him to do it,” Cam laughed again.

Joss slapped his shoulder. “You are awful, and this is not funny.” She reached out to Franco. “Hey, come on. Get up, okay.”

“Mama?”

“I think you ate something that is making you sick,” Joss told him.

“He makes me sick,” Franco told her.

“Help me try to get him to stand up,” Joss ordered.

Cam and Joss moved to either side and tried to pull him to his feet.

“Stop it!” Franco yelled. “Stop him! Mama, stop him!” He was suddenly sobbing. “Don’t listen to him. He hurts me. Why won’t you listen to me?” he was whimpering, begging Joss to protect him.

“I don’t know who he thinks you are, but you better step back,” Joss said. “I think you’ve got to call 911.”

“Are you crazy?” Cam snapped at her. “He can sleep it off.” Franco appeared to be drifting back to sleep. “Hey,” Cam said, pulling on his arm. “You need to go to bed. Come on. Get up, now!”

“Why are you yelling?” Joss asked, finding Cam’s behavior troubling.

“He thinks you’re his mom. He must think I’m his dad.”

“Scott Baldwin?”

“No, his stepdad if he had one. Or half a dozen like I have had. Whatever, if you’re mom, I must be dad, right?”

“I guess,” Joss shrugged.

Franco opened his eyes, but the light caused shooting pains. He saw clouds of color—reds and browns. He tried to stand up but was wobbling.

“Come on,” Cam said. He just wanted to get him to lay down on the couch and sleep.

He attempted to take a step. His feet and legs were tingling, and he could barely feel the floor underneath him. He fell forward, with a crack as his head on the corner of the coffee table.

“Oh, brilliant!” Joss cried. “Now you have no choice but to call 911.” She kneeled next to him to see if he was conscious.

“Maybe it’s not that bad,” Cam tossed her a blue and green throw that was on the couch. “Head wounds just bleed a lot.”

“He’s knocked out cold, hallucinating, and bleeding, Cameron. You can’t be that callous. Just call your mom or something.”

“At least he hit his head, so we can blame whatever he says on that.” Cam took his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll text Drew.”

“There is no _we_ in this,” Joss snapped.

Cam exchanged some texts with Drew and told Joss that Drew was on his way.

“How long will that take, though? Should we like, turn him over?” She was relieved that the blood flow was slowing.

“I guess so,” Cam agreed. He pushed the coffee table out of the way since it was both in the way and a potential hazard if Franco woke up. “Drew said he’d be here in five minutes.”

Cam did most of the work to get Franco turned onto his back.

“Get away!” Franco protested with a minimal attempt to push the male who was speaking away. The world was hazy and spinning.

Cam made a quick trip to the kitchen and brought back a wet rag to wash away the blood on Franco’s right temple.

“Go away,” Franco raised his voice. In his mind, he was in his art studio and Jim Harvey was threatening him. In a quick, unexpected moment, he sat up and punched Cam in the face, sending him flying backward. “I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else.”

Cam held his jaw, sitting with his back against the wall. He never expected Franco to hit him. And he was surprised at just how hard he had been hit, considering Franco wasn’t even fully aware of his surroundings.

“Oh my god,” Joss screamed. “I told you this was a stupid idea!”

Drew stood in the doorway, shocked by what he’d just seen. Franco was obviously impaired but trying to get to his feet. “What the hell is going on?”

He ran to them. “Joss, get away from him. Right now,” he ordered, sensing that Franco could be a danger.

He sat on the floor and took both of Franco’s wrists and held them tightly. “Hey, hey, brother, look at me. It’s Drew.”

Franco’s pupils were full as he swayed slightly. “Andy?” he whispered. He fell forward and rested his head against Drew’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s me, Andy. You’re okay.”

“Cameron put drugs in his coffee,” Joss admitted tearfully, fearfully running ideas of what could be wrong or what could go wrong through her mind.

“What kind of drugs?” Drew practically growled.

Cameron didn’t answer.

“Some street drug,” Joss told him. “He has no idea what it really is.”

Drew was dumbfounded. He had to decide which took priority—getting Franco back to reality or verbally ripping into Cameron. His instincts kicked in.

He watched Franco closely and kept his hold on his wrists. “Tell me what has happened since he drank the coffee.”

“He fell asleep and he… I don’t know. He’s been calling me Mama and asking me to stop Cameron from hurting him. But I think he thinks Cameron is someone else.”

“He does,” Drew told her. “You both need to leave this room,” he told them in a very calm voice.

“What if he attacks you?” Cameron asked, genuinely concerned for Drew.

“He won’t attack me,” Drew’s voice was steady. “Leave.”

Cameron and Joss headed upstairs but stopped near the top and sat down to eavesdrop. Joss was both nervous and angry. “We shouldn’t listen,” she whispered.

“If he goes ballistic and attacks Drew, I have to jump in,” Cam told her. “I really screwed up.”

Downstairs, Drew tried to get through to Franco. “You’re okay,” he repeated. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

He didn’t respond.

“Bobby?” Drew attempted to reach him by using the name their mother called him.

Franco sat up straight again and gave Drew an icy reply. “Bobby’s dead.”

“No, no, you’re not dead.” Drew thought he was being reassuring.

Franco scowled. “Bobby is dead. They killed him.”

At the top of the stairs, Cam and Joss were both having a hard time trying to find any meaning in what Franco was saying.

“Who killed Bobby?” Drew asked. Despite his knowledge of Franco’s past, even he was surprised by this proclamation.

Franco’s eyes narrowed. He tried to jerk his arms away from Drew. “You left. Bobby tried to keep you from getting hurt and you left. Now he’s dead.” He turned away.

“Cam,” Drew called to him.

Cam and Joss quickly came down the stairs.

“Do you need help?” Cam asked.

“We have to get him to the hospital.” Drew kept his voice low and never took his eyes off Franco.

“Is he dangerous?” Joss squeaked.

“Not when he’s in his right mind,” Drew answered. “But he’s definitely not there right now. This is what we’re going to do. Cam, you’re going to drive my car and I’m going to get Franco into the backseat of the car and make sure he doesn’t lash out. Are Jake and Aiden home?”

“Aiden has a cold. He’s in his room. Jake is with Jason.”

“Okay, Josslyn, you’re going to stay here with Aiden. I know you don’t want to do it, but I need you to call Elizabeth and tell her exactly what has happened. The drugs in the coffee, thinking you were Betsy, being afraid of Cameron, hitting him. Tell her everything. You can’t protect Cam. You can’t skip over telling her about the illegal drug. I’ve got to keep my eyes on Franco. No distractions. That’s why you have to make the call.”

Joss nodded as heart sank into her stomach.

Drew continued. “Then you are going to call Monica and tell her what happened. Tell her that I am bringing Franco to the hospital and I need her to help me get around some protocols. I want her to find Elizabeth and I want the two of them to come to the car with a wheelchair so we can get him into the hospital quickly. I need a room ready and Dr. Lucas Jones and Dr. Kevin Collins need to be informed of the situation.”

“Okay,” Joss told him. She was in tears as she went upstairs and sat by Aiden’s doorway to make the phone calls.

“Come on, get up,” Drew told Franco. “I’m going to help you.”

Franco glared at him.

“Trust me.” He wasn’t making any progress. “Okay, I know you don’t trust me or anyone else right now. But I’m going to take you to Elizabeth. You remember Elizabeth, right?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who any of you are.” He was emotionless.

“I’m your brother, Andy. I didn’t leave you. I got sent away because of _him_. Because _he_ lied. You understand?”

“Okay,” Franco nodded, barely.

“I’m here now and I’m going to help. Will you follow me?” He realized that Franco would probably respond better to requests than demands. “I promise, if you come with me, I’m going to find someone to help you.”

“No one will help,” he mumbled.

“I know no one would help then. But I came back and I’m going to help you. Come on,” he urged.

After some coaxing and more promises and a lot of reassurance, Drew got Franco into the car and Cam drove them to the hospital.

Cam knew he was in trouble and he felt sick to his stomach. Elizabeth was upset when they arrived, and she didn’t have the focus to respond to him. Drew told Franco to be quiet as they went inside.

As Drew explained the situation to Monica and Elizabeth, Cam realized what he had done was more serious than he thought. Drew asked Monica to keep in mind that Franco had not knowingly taken any drugs. He asked her to make sure the incident wasn’t reported to the police or the hospital board. Cam knew Drew was trying to protect both him and Franco with these requests.

Elizabeth took his temperature and blood pressure and started an IV of saline solution. She placed monitoring lines to track his vital signs. She filled vial after vial with blood. Franco was conscious, but unresponsive.

“Cameron, do you have any idea what you actually put in the coffee,” Lucas asked. He was disappointed that Cameron did something so irresponsible.

Cameron told him what little he knew about the drug. He reluctantly admitted that he had another capsule. Elizabeth put it in a protective bag without saying a word and left to personally deliver the blood and the drug to Brad in the lab.

She hurried back to the room and Lucas was waiting to give his findings. He waited for Elizabeth to arrive so that he could explain answer any questions Cameron and Drew might have.

Elizabeth stood by the bed and held Franco’s hand. “Let’s hear it,” she said.

“Blood pressure, respiration, and pulse are low, but not in the dangerous range. He will not respond to questions. I feel comfortable ruling out a structural cause. He’s conscious, but he won’t interact. I believe Dr. Collins will be more equipped to determine what is causing this. Brad will rush the results, but keep in mind that with a street drug, even if two pieces are purchased from the same supplier at the same time, they may not be cut with the same ingredients or proportions. I will be back as soon as I have any further information.”

Elizabeth sighed, shaking her head. Monica approached her and rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay.”

“His eyes are vacant,” Elizabeth told her. “What if… what if he’s gone?”

“What do you mean gone?” Cam asked. He didn’t mean to call attention to himself, but he was frightened.

Elizabeth turned to face him. “You don’t know what you gave him. You don’t know what medication he takes regularly or if he’s taken anything else today that could interact. His history is significant for a brain tumor and an overdose of LSD.”

“LSD?” Drew repeated.

“Heather. She was going to inject Nina Reeves to kill her. Franco took it to protect Nina.”

“That woman is insane,” Monica muttered. She was all too familiar with Heather. Any child of hers had certainly entered the world at a disadvantage.

“What was this, Cameron? Are you trying to kill him? Hurt him? Why?”

“It was just supposed to be a joke,” he answered feebly.

“Are you laughing?” Elizabeth snapped. “Is this funny to you? Do you like seeing my husband incapacitated? Do you think medical care is free?”

“No.”

“What happens if he doesn’t recover? And I’m not asking you what happens if he dies. What happens if you just fried his brain and he’s incapacitated for the rest of his life? Who’s going to be there with me when you and your brothers go start your own lives? I vowed sickness and health. I won’t abandon him. Ever. It doesn’t matter what stunt you pull. I have devoted my life to making you and your brothers happy and taking care of you. I wanted to be happy too. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to grow old with him and spoil our grandchildren with him. Are you going to get a job if I’m home being a caretaker? Are you going to step up and pay the mortgage and electricity and gas and cable and Wi-Fi, and for all the phones?” She barely paused to take a breath.

“What about college? You know he has money set aside already for you and Jake and Aiden to all go to college—just like he did with Kiki’s medical school tuition. His money, Cameron. Not mine. He’s the one with the lucrative career. You can kiss college goodbye because that money will go to medical expenses and you’ll be working to support our family. You’re out of luck. How do you like that peek into the future?”

Cam couldn’t respond. His mother had never spoken to him like that before. But he deserved it. He deserved every word of it.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Monica was merciful enough to break it. “I’m going to call in Dr. Collins now. I’ll check in later.”

Cameron had no response. He knew it was not in his best interest to protest or try to explain what he had done. Elizabeth was not going to give any consideration to his silly reasons for doing what he had done.


	2. Kevin Explains It All

After an examination and an attempt at an interview, Kevin reviewed the notes Lucas had made. He waited until he had personally examined Franco to get information from other sources so they wouldn’t influence his own assessment.

“If I could remove the influence of the drug from the equation,” Kevin began, “I would be able to say that we are seeing an alternate identity that was unknown before this.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes, swaying. Drew put his hands on her shoulders and guided her to sit down next to Cameron. She had been on her feet too long. “But because of the drugs…?”

“I can’t rule out a hallucination at this time.”

Elizabeth ran a tired hand through her hair. “Please explain this to _all_ of us.” She could tell that Kevin was concerned about Franco’s confidentiality by the way he glanced from her to Drew to Cameron and back. “Look, I’m his medical proxy. I need all the help I can get. I need Drew because he is the only person in the world that Franco trusts besides me. Cameron is here because _he_ is the reason Franco is here. I’m not being flippant about my husband’s past. But at this point, his psychiatric file has been passed through many hands because Ryan tried to use it to frame him. There are completely irrelevant people out there who know more of what you know than I do. Cam’s curiosity about _why Franco is who he is_ put us in this room. He’s old enough to learn some harsh truths… like to trust his mother’s judgment.”

Kevin took a deep breath while he considered what to say and how to simplify a lengthy explanation.

“Why would he suddenly develop an alternate identity?” Drew asked.

“Oh, it’s not sudden,” Kevin answered without hesitation. “If it’s an alternate, it was there when he was three. Or if not this one, another one.”

“What do you mean _another one_?” Elizabeth was overwhelmed. “I’m not criticizing you, Kevin, but how has it not been diagnosed before.”

“It hasn’t appeared. The foundation for the diagnosis has been well-documented. This version of Franco is telling us that Bobby doesn’t exist because _they killed him_. I don’t have anything in my existing case notes that tells me who _they_ are. Everything that he has revealed to me so far has been solely about Jim Harvey. An alternate with this specific notion likely was triggered by a very specific event that Franco hasn’t been able to recall because _this_ alternate has that memory.”

“Help me understand this,” Drew requested. “I don’t really know anything about psychology. Is he like schizophrenic or hearing voices or something?”

“It’s not the same. Dissociative Identity Disorder is created situationally. Schizophrenia has an onset period, usually in the teens to early twenties. He has never indicated he hears voices. Because of the young age that he was initially abused, he used a defense mechanism—”

Drew interrupted him, “Wait. Explain it like I am a college freshman who hasn’t had Psych 101 and I’ve been accidentally placed in a graduate class.”

Kevin recalculated his approach. “Probably 99% of cases of DID occur with individuals who have a history that is significant for debilitating trauma at a very young age. And, like with Franco, it is usually almost always correlated with being subjected to repeated acts of sexual abuse at a very young age.”

Cam shifted uncomfortably. He never thought his joke could have led to a truly critical situation. He was certainly not learning anything _amusing_ about his stepfather’s past. He wanted to somehow hide from this conversation. He no longer wanted to know Franco’s secrets.

“That being said,” Kevin continued, “It is not a common disorder. And it’s more common in women than in men. However, Bobby—and let’s not lose sight that we are talking about three-to-four-year-old Bobby right now—came from a unique set of circumstances that would make DID more likely to present itself.” He paused to make sure everyone was following so far.

“First, his biological mother is criminally insane. That predisposed him to develop a mental disorder. His adoptive mother was… unstable and sometimes emotionally absent. You have biological and environmental factors putting him at risk. Particularly, in this case, the two components were…” he paused again, trying to find the best way to say what he had to say. “His cognitive ability combined with the… violence and manipulation that he endured…” Kevin was becoming emotional talking about it. “The physical torment…” He stopped and tried to compose himself.

“It’s unimaginable,” Drew supplied.

Kevin nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be professional and detached, but I can’t be detached from his case. Honestly, I’ve come to care about him too much.”

“I’m glad you’re not detached,” Elizabeth told him. “I think anyone who could detach himself from what you’re telling us would be too callous and unfeeling to be an effective therapist.”

Kevin steadied himself to plow through. “You have an idea of what was happening to him physically. But you also need to take into consideration what was happening with his cognitive process. Bobby had unusually advanced intellectual skills. By the time he was four years old, when the incident of accidentally pushing Drew down the stairs occurred, he understood more complex if-then situations than a typical very young child. Your average three-year-old can likely understand something concrete like, _if I push the glass off the table, it will break_. Bobby considered hypothetical situations and used evidence and had reasoning for his actions. He saw the link between Uncle Jim bringing a toy and being assaulted initially. He deduced that if Uncle Jim ever brought Andy a toy, Andy would be assaulted. So, he frequently attempted to give his toys to Andy so Andy wouldn’t have to be indebted to Uncle Jim for them. That is higher order thinking, closer to typical 10 to 12-year-old. As a serial pedophile, Jim Harvey came into that home targeting _both_ children. Betsy was an easy mark. She’s not unintelligent, but she was naïve and very needy. She was overwhelmed with having two illegally obtained children. Jim Harvey studied the family dynamics and realized he had to neutralize Bobby to get to Andy. The two children were far too close to one another to assume they wouldn’t talk to each other and tell their mother. Bobby wasn’t easy to neutralize. He was fiercely protective of Andy and not intellectually broken by Harvey. He was certainly a challenge, and Harvey got off on that for a while. When Bobby saw Harvey begin to groom Andy, he threatened to tell his mother what was happening. He was four years old and using leverage against this apex predator.”

Kevin checked to see that they were still following him. “I apologize because probably sound entirely too enthusiastic about that, but it’s so remarkable that a child that young was essentially outsmarting this monster. Bobby had the ability to reason that if he could hide Andy, Andy would be safe. He also understood that he could not hide _with_ Andy because Harvey would find them both and hurt them both. The true flaw with Bobby’s attempt to get Andy to hide in the basement was his desperation. He couldn’t speak of what Harvey was doing and he couldn’t convince Andy to hide just by telling him to do it. But he heard Harvey coming toward them and…” he looked at Drew. “He pushed you.”

Drew was visibly shaken. “So, he was basically this little genius and I was too stupid to do what he told me to do.”

“Drew, you’re not stupid,” Kevin chuckled. “You understandably did not want to be locked in dark basement by yourself. You didn’t have the same information that Bobby had.”

Drew nodded, wishing he had memories of his past.

“During this time that Bobby was repetitively assaulted, he used a defense mechanism called dissociation to separate his mind from his body. We all dissociate and it’s not always trauma related. If you have ever been driving and lost in thought and then realized you had to take the next exit, that is a kind of dissociation where your mind and body are doing two separate things effectively.”

“I get that,” Drew told him. “Where does the disorder part come in?”

“The mind that uses dissociation uses a mechanism somewhat like expert level self-hypnosis. The core identity is Bobby. But if Bobby is not reacting—and forgive me for being graphic—if Jim Harvey isn’t content with a vacant lump in the bed, part of Bobby separates from the core, to interact and endure what was being done to his body. It’s self-preservation. The part that had to interact becomes an alternate. It goes away when it’s not needed.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Elizabeth jumped up and rushed into the bathroom. The men could hear her retching into the toilet.

Cameron followed and found his mother on her knees, hanging onto the toilet bowl, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Mom,” he handed her a wet paper towel like she had so often done for him and his brothers when they were sick. Elizabeth leaned against her son’s legs, holding onto him for support. She openly sobbed, consumed with the mental image of that horrible man doing unspeakable things to a small child. Cameron flushed the toilet. “It’s okay, Mom,” he told her because he had no idea what else to say. Eventually, she composed herself and Cameron led her back into the room.

“I should stop,” Kevin told them.

“No,” Elizabeth said. “We’ve come too far to stop now.”

“Elizabeth, as I’ve told Franco in sessions, there is a point where new information becomes more harmful than helpful. You have a lot to process and it goes beyond the potential diagnosis. There’s a possibility of brain damage. It’s too much for one person to handle.”

“I’m not one person alone,” Elizabeth said. “I have Drew and Cameron and you.”

“We’re a team,” Drew told them. “How about the speed reader’s version of the end?”

Kevin audibly exhaled, again trying to calculate the most effective and direct way to explain it all.

“Let’s say that this first alternate was created to handle the physical experience and those memories. That identity, as all alternates do, has a specific purpose. Of course, I am speculating that there is this First Alternate. The one who is informing us that Bobby Is Dead also has a specific purpose. It likely has the memory of whatever incident _killed_ _Bobby_. Once the mind fractures, it becomes easier to fracture again and again.”

“So, why is the Bobby Is Dead Alternate showing up now? Why not before?”

“The _function._ The perceived threat against his life that happened with the overdose. I think he wanted someone to know that _Bobby Is Dead_ , so it’s useless to keep trying to kill him.”

“I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t even want to hurt him!” Cameron argued.

“How would he know that?” Kevin asked directly.

“I don’t know,” Cameron answered, shoulders slumped.

“His mind went to some place where Jim Harvey was a mortal threat and his mother was ignoring his pleas for help.” He said the next thing he had to say with some trepidation. “I think we could benefit from having Betsy here. She’s the only person who has memories of that time period. She may be able to help fill in some of the gaps.”

“Then, I will get her,” Drew told them. “I’ll find her and bring her back.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth told him while Kevin nodded.

“What if,” Drew started. “What if I let you hypnotize me? Do you think there is any hope for retrieving any information after whatever Andre Maddox did to my brain?”

“I do, actually.” Kevin told them. “You may not be able to retrieve your memories as it is, but they are not removed from your brain. That’s not physiologically possible without atrophy of the brain itself. It may take a lot of time and effort, but I do believe that we can unlock something.”

“Okay, then,” Drew said. “I will find Betsy, bring her back, and I guess we’ll start some family therapy.”

“The academic in me would be lying if I didn’t say I am looking forward to it.” Kevin told him.

“What do I need to do for my husband?”

“Wait,” Kevin answered. “Based on the known half-lives of some of the components of the compound that Brad identified, the toxicity of what Franco ingested has not left his body. We can pray that the unresponsiveness is related to the toxic components.”

“Yeah, I’m not even going to stick around for the pharmaceutical lesson,” Drew told them. He kissed Elizabeth’s cheek. “I will find Betsy and we are going to go from there. Cam, you take care of your mother. Make sure she gets some rest tonight.”

Cameron nodded.

“I know what half-lives are,” Elizabeth told him. “I don’t need further explanation.”

“Good,” Kevin said. “I’m usually the one listening, not the one talking. I will come back frequently to check his progress. I agree with Drew that you need to rest. So, doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not my doctor,” Elizabeth reminded him.

“But you’re playing the medical proxy card and I am your husband’s doctor. By proxy, I am your doctor now.” He gave her a charming smile. “It’s going to get better,” he promised. “Franco fought too hard to build a life with you and your kids to be defeated by this.”


	3. Kiki Has Something to Say

“Hey, Brat, wake up!”

Cameron felt a tap on his shoulder. He opened his eyes but didn’t see anyone in the room who would have spoken to him. Elizabeth was asleep on one side of the uncomfortable visitor’s couch and he had been sleeping on the other. The hospital was eerily quiet at night compared to the bustle of the day.

“Yoo-hoo!”

He sat up. He could have sworn someone said something to him. He quietly got up to see if Franco was talking. He was disappointed to see that he was just asleep.

“Pssst, Brat.”

Cameron spun around when he heard the female voice again. He took a step backward and hit the wheeled tray next to the bed and sent it crashing into the wall. He cringed, hoping he hadn’t woken anyone else up. He glanced at Elizabeth—she was deeply asleep, emotionally and physically drained. Laura had taken Aiden and Jake for the night, or until further notice.

“Who said that?” He whispered. The room was dimly lit.

“I did.”

He turned back to the hospital bed. He was stunned to see Kiki Jerome sitting on the foot of the bed. She was wearing a sleeveless, long white dress and had a ring of Gerber daisies in her golden blond hair. Her feet were bare. She was utterly beautiful. “Uh…”

“Don’t worry,” Kiki told him. “You didn’t take _any drugs_ or anything.”

Cam looked from her to Franco.

“You aren’t going to say hello? Ask how I’ve been? How’s tricks?” She gave him a wink.

“I thought you were dead.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not around.” Kiki told him. “And I have a bone to pick with you, mister.”

Cam was sure he was dreaming. That had to be it. He rubbed his eyes. But she was still there when he stopped.

“You have the privilege of having a stepfather who can love a kid with so much devotion that—if you would accept it—you would realize just how totally awesome he is. Quite honestly, _you’re pissing me off_.”

Cam said nothing. In the last 24 hours he had had his character justifiably insulted by Josslyn, Drew, his mother, a look from Dr. Jones, the tone of Dr. Collins’ voice, and now a ghostly version of his would-have-been-sort-of stepsister.

“He has a history, sure. Most of us do. His criminal behavior was attributed to a brain tumor. If you can’t accept that as a medical _fact_ , maybe you should go to medical _school_ and learn that it’s a medical _reality_. You might make a good doctor, you know, since you like prescribing things for people. Maybe you should think about it and start doing better in school.”

Cameron rubbed his eyes once more, trying to get out of this dream.

“What has he done to you that’s so wrong? Why do you hate him? Don’t you have a clue how lucky you are? I didn’t get to grow up with my dad. I had a few beautiful years to get to know him. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about him, he has a kind and beautiful soul and I’m tired of you kicking him while he’s down.”

Cam simply didn’t know how to have a conversation with an apparition.

“He misses me. He cries over me… by himself. Because he doesn’t want to bother anyone with how he feels. He keeps his grief unspoken so it doesn’t become anyone else’s problem. Your mother has so much to deal with already and he doesn’t want to burden her. He’s unselfish and he focuses on you and Elizabeth and Jake and Aiden. He tries to make _all_ your lives better. If you only had a clue… but you’re just a selfish brat. Your mom is married to the _only_ man who will ever love you and protect you with all the devotion that any biological father could offer. What good is being a father genetically if you’re also absent or uninvolved? Ask Aiden and Jake how it feels to have living dads who don’t make them a priority. All your snootiness does is hurt Franco and stress out Elizabeth. You have _MY_ dad now and you better learn to appreciate that. Don’t ever hurt him again, Brat. _It will displease me if you do._ ” She cackled her last sentence, making Cameron look frightened enough to wet his pants. She grinned. Her dad would have approved.

“Leave us alone,” Kiki told him. “I want some time with my un-Daddy.”

Cam walked away. When he returned to his seat, he looked toward the bed and Kiki was gone. However, the blanket over Franco had the impression of a smaller body lying beside him. The consistent beeping of the heart monitor slowed slightly, and Cameron saw Franco move his arm to his chest as if he was wrapping someone in a hug.

Cameron closed his eyes and shook his head. That wasn’t possible. None of this was possible. And somehow, he felt like he needed to close his eyes and go back to sleep so Kiki could be alone with her dad.


	4. Mistake... Maybe

Franco became more and more lucid as the hours passed. Elizabeth initially woke to find that he was having a hushed conversation with an unseen Kiki. He told the thin air he would grieve less the day he woke up and remembered how much he loved her more than he felt how much he missed her. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered to his un-daughter even though she was only a memory. Elizabeth let him have the apparition of Kiki without interruption. She couldn’t take away the happiness that even a ghostly Kiki could give him.

A few more hours passed before he began speaking with an understanding of where he was and with whom.

“I may have made a mistake,” Elizabeth told Franco after Lucas and Kevin finished examining him.

“I don’t know how I got here,” Franco answered, taking her hand in his. “I think multiple mistakes may have been made.” His questions to Lucas and Kevin about why he was in the hospital were not been answered because his “wife wanted to speak to him about it.” He could have demanded answers since he was the patient, but he deferred to Elizabeth’s judgment.

She laughed softly. “Actually, you are not at fault in any way for this situation.” She ran her fingers through his hair while standing close to him. His vital signs were still being monitored and she kept check that everything was within normal limits.

“Well, that’s a relief,” his tone was light because he wanted Elizabeth to feel less stress. Kevin mentioned how relieved he was that he was recovering at this pace, so he already knew whatever had happened had been serious. He saw that Elizabeth didn’t look comforted. “I know whatever you did was because you thought it was right. It can’t be that bad.”

“I’ll let you decide that,” she offered. She stepped away for a moment. “I got really scared. Lucas and Kevin were talking about potential brain damage and you weren’t responsive and—”

“Wait,” Franco interrupted. “I still don’t know what happened.”

“Oh,” she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Cameron put a recreational drug in your coffee. First you were confused, then not yourself, then you physically tried to defend yourself, then you were completely unresponsive.” She paused, waiting for him to react.

Franco was afraid when she said he had tried to defend himself. “What did I do? I don’t remember. Did I hurt someone?”

“Not on purpose and not that badly.” She paused. “You saw Cameron as a threat when you were hallucinating, and you punched him. Like you _really_ punched him.” She pounded her right fist against her other hand, making a loud smacking sound.

His lips moved, but he couldn’t find what he wanted to say. He shook his head. “I can’t believe I hit your son. I am so sorry. He’s never going to forgive me, is he?”

“No one, not even Cameron, believes you intended to hit him. He drugged your coffee. Hopefully he learned that that’s a bad idea.”

“He drugged me on purpose?” He was devastated by this information. “On purpose?” he repeated. His wife’s frown confirmed it. “What is he doing with recreational drugs in the first place?”

She shrugged, still angry and disappointed in her eldest child. “He… I don’t know. I don’t think—no, I _know_ he didn’t mean any harm. He’s young and stupid enough to think it was a prank because his stupid friends made it out to be funny.”

“Then it sounds like he made a mistake. Why are _you_ apologizing?”

She sighed. “I was scared, and I was angry,” she repeated. “Cam’s stupidity could have killed you or left you permanently impaired. So, I kind of—okay not _kind of_ —I violated your trust because I made him stay in the room while I got Kevin to explain what was happening with your behavior. It may have been a rash decision.”

“Baby, baby,” he reached for her hand seeing that she was so distressed. “Hey, it’s okay. I would have been terrified if I thought you could die or be seriously hurt. I would probably handle it badly all around.”

“Did I handle it badly?” she asked, her eyes imploring him to forgive her.

“I believe that you did what you thought you had to in the moment. You’re not vindictive. You weren’t using my past to punish Cam.”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted with one of those looks that only Elizabeth could give him that would make him forgive anything. “I was so angry that he doesn’t treat you with respect and that he would do something that could hurt you without even thinking it through.” She walked away again. “He knows better. And, honestly, yes, I wanted him to know why you’re guarded and why you have a hard time connecting with people and why I have no doubts at all about our relationship or that the boys are safe with you and that I am safe with you.”

He could tell that she was still tense over the incident. “You can punch the wall, but you might break your hand.”

She turned around and glared at him.

“Come here,” he jerked his head a little to the side. “If you really want to punch something, you can use my pillow.”

“Cameron knows what Jim Harvey did to you,” she was direct, waiting for him to admonish her.

He knew that’s what she was saying, but the clear and concise phrasing stung a little. “Yeah. Got that.”

“You are allowed to react.” She believed that he pressured himself to not allow himself to be angry, even if it was justified. He didn’t trust himself to get angry. He had worked diligently to understand his source of rage and to change his responses.

“I don’t know how to react,” he replied. “It was probably going to come up sometime anyway, right?” He waved her back to him. “You needed help. He’s old enough to help. He’s old enough to be accountable for his actions. There’s not an iota of my being that believes you thought that was less than what had to be done at the time.”

“On the bright side,” she started, “He’s been knocked down a few pegs and has a new appreciation for how easy his life has actually been.”

The expression on Franco’s face revealed that he was bothered by what she had said.

“What?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t want what happened to me to be the new _There are starving kids in Africa_.”

“Yeah, I know.” She swallowed a lump in her throat, trying very hard not to cry. She didn’t have anything to cry about. He wasn’t angry. He was likely going to be physically healthy again in a week or so.

“It’s okay. What about Jake and Aiden?”

“Oh, no, they don’t know.” she assured him.

He nodded. “Well, there’s a hard conversation for another day.”

“Something to look forward to,” she said with fake enthusiasm. She could tell from his eyes that she had said the wrong thing in the wrong tone again.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, silently berating himself that his stupid past wouldn’t just die and stay in the past.

“No,” Elizabeth took his hand and made him scoot over so she could sit on his hospital bed with him. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”

“No one can be sensitive all the time and it’s a ridiculous thing to expect someone to walk on eggshells anyway,” he told her. “I would do well to be less sensitive. I know it’s annoying that my past is so damn complicated and messy.”

She took a deep breath and took both of his hands in hers. She made eye contact. “Look at me,” she told him. “Don’t look away from me until I stop talking.”

He nodded. He had a sinking sensation that he was about to feel like a first grader being scolded by a teacher.

“I’m going to say something that you need to hear. But you need to hear ALL of it. ALL the way through. Do you understand? You cannot tune out after the first sentence.”

“Okay,” he agreed with some hesitation. He felt a little sick to his stomach.

“I’m going to say something that I know is going to shatter your soul for about three seconds. But then you have to give me about three minutes to piece it back together.”

He frowned, not liking the sound of this.

“Ready?”

He nodded.

“Sometimes your past rearing its ugly head _is_ annoying or inconvenient.” She could see his heart disintegrating before her. “BUT,” she added quickly. “But that doesn’t make me love you any less. You are not just your past. You are a complex, loving, kind, wonderful man.” She took his chin to tilt his head so that he would look at her. “You are so much more than your past. I love you for so many reasons. I love your artistic side. I love your quirky humor. I love your patience. I love your generosity. I love your desire to do the right thing. I love your work ethic. I love the way you did the work to change your life. I love the way you love my kids. I love the way you loved Kiki. I love that you talk Ava off ledges and keep her out of jail even though she’s your -ex. I love that you see Liesl Obrecht as a human even though I do not understand how. You can find good in people that others just write off.”

He tried to look away. “There’s more,” she told him. “I love the way you touch me when we’re alone. I love the way you touch me when we’re not alone but wish we were. I love how you can take the lead or follow my lead and satisfy my physical desires as if making me happy is your life’s calling. I love your eyes and your smile and your neck and if I go any lower, I might just do some very bad things at our workplace.”

He gave her a lopsided half-grin.

“There is nothing convenient or easy about the sexual abuse you suffered. But that’s not all you are. You’re not just a victim. You’re a husband and father and lover and friend. I know sometimes it feels like it takes over, but that is such a small part of who you are. Jim Harvey did nothing to teach you how to be a kind and decent human being. Your mother put you in danger, sent away your brother, and lied so much that she convinced you that you were crazy. You came into this world with the instincts to protect your brother and your mother… and now you want to protect me and the boys. So, if you slip into a funk because the past tapped on your shoulder or hit you with a full tackle and knocked the wind out of you, that’s just a part of all the things that go together to make you the wonderful, beautiful person that I will cherish and love until my dying breath. You panic and you think that one mistake or one problem will make someone run from you and decide you’re not worth it. You are so afraid that you will never be good enough and you will be abandoned. I get it. That’s what you were told. That’s what you lived. But I’m telling you _it’s not true_. I am not going to run from you. You couldn’t chase me off with a stick.” She kissed his forehead. “Do you get it now? If I get frustrated or even annoyed, it’s not a reflection on my feelings for _you_. You mean everything to me; and I love you, even the ugly, complicated, debilitating parts that take over sometime. So, I will always be there to get you through to the other side even when the beautiful part of you is feeling trampled.”

He wrapped his arms around her, tears slipping down his cheeks onto her shoulder. “If I could make it all go away, I would. I don’t want to put this on you.”

“I know, baby. We all would make it disappear if we could. It’s just not how things are. We are fallible, imperfect people who have decided there is much more to love about each other than not, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Then don’t be sad or afraid. Whatever happens, you are mine for the rest of my life and I will not let you go.”

“Can I say the same about you?”

“You better say the same about me,” she laughed.

He saw how tired she appeared. There were grayish patches of skin under her eyes and her eyes were streaked with irritated blood vessels. “I get the impression you might be running on two hours of sleep and nine cups of coffee.”

“That about covers it,” she admitted with a yawn.

“So, go home and rest. Really. I’ll be okay. I want to talk to Kevin. You said he had to explain my behavior to you. So—whatever happened—maybe I need him to explain it to me too.”

She nodded. “Probably. I asked him not to go into any details with the exam he just did. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“That settles it then. You go rest and I’ll wait to talk to Kevin. Any idea how long I’m stuck here?”

“More lab work will tell us. The toxic chemicals have to be absent from your bloodstream, so you won’t be at risk for another reaction.”

He sighed. “I want to go home. I want to hold you while we sleep in our bed.”

“Just sleep?” she teased.

“Probably not. I wouldn’t mind demonstrating my impeccable abilities to follow directions.” He smiled at her and Elizabeth knew they would make it through this latest challenge, even if some things were said or done wrong.


	5. Recovered Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a possibility that a reader may find this chapter extremely disturbing. The kind of trauma that leads to DID is beyond the norm. Some of this is based on personal experience, exaggerated for fictional purposes, of course. Hit your back button now if you are easily triggered.

Before they started the hypnotherapy session, Kevin answered Franco’s questions about how he had arrived at the idea that he could have alternate identities. He explained that there were numerous types of alternates and that they were a method of survival.

“Do I have to do that integration thing you talked about?”

“I think that will be up to you. You have been functioning well in the last year or so. You’ve done a lot of work through hypnosis already. I believe that some of the interactions we had while under hypnosis already started an integration process. There are memories that were cut off that you have worked into your conscious memory and are working through. But that doesn’t mean you have to fully integrate. The goal is to get to a level of healthy function. That’s all, Franco. Just to get you to a point where you can go through life feeling safe enough that you won’t disappear behind a protective alter.”

“How could I have this and not know it?”

“You’re a capable person and when you’re not at your best, you tend to know how to cover it.” He saw Franco’s look of doubt. “Really, you are. You finished college, got a graduate degree, you maintain a job, you have long term relationships, you pay your bills. These alternate parts of yourself can be background noise that you don’t realize is there until it’s needed. Something in the way the drug affected you triggered a memory that led to the need.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a hallucination? And that there’s more than just the one who claims _they killed Bobby_?”

Kevin expected these questions and he had prepared for them. “I went back and studied your file intensely. Every word, every note, every recording. The kind of abuse you experienced is a textbook cause of dissociative identity disorder. If you were to meet one hundred patients who have this, ninety-nine-and-a-half of them would have experienced sexual abuse at a very young age. I’ve picked up on some gaps in your memory. You’ve often replied to questions about school, about your early home life, about your teenage years, and about what Betsy did to protect you with either an “I don’t know,” or an “I can’t remember. You’ve never been able to tell me how long Jim Harvey was in your life. You don’t have an end point. You have limited recall of your young adult life. I thought that could be due to having the tumor growing slowly for such a long time and then having the surgery to remove it. But it might be more than that.”

“I have a weird brain, don’t I?” Franco asked.

“Very,” Kevin chuckled, knowing Franco well enough that he would not be offended by a little laugh at the complexity of the situation. “Is there anything you can tell me about your general memories of life? Like what do you remember about college? Or your early career?”

He gave it some thought before admitting things he had never told another person. “Sometimes I’ve done things and not known I did it until I found evidence that I did it or someone mentioned it and I just had to play along like I knew what they were talking about. I’ve woken up with people I don’t remember going to bed with. I would just shrug it off as drinking too much or whatever, but it didn’t always feel that way, hungover, you know. Was that the brain tumor or this psycho stuff?”

Kevin cringed at the word _psycho_ , but he let it go. “Either one or a combination of both. Waking up with people you don’t remember going to bed with—that’s very common with this disorder. Young adults feel a lot of pressure to fit in with their peer groups. You act like they do so they don’t realize that you’re different. Do you remember when you became sexually active post the abusive years?” He hated to phrase it in such a way that it made the abuse almost sound consensual, but sometimes it was best to simply the conversation as much as possible.

Franco’s mind was blank as he searched for the answer. He shrugged, feeling a sense of guilt when he answered, “I don’t. I’ve had dreams about people that I don’t remember having ever met before and I wake up confused, like… did that happen? Why do I dream about people I don’t know and things I didn’t do?”

Kevin assured him that he hadn’t done anything wrong. “Many people with both physical and mental illnesses experience profound memory loss.”

“I don’t want to be _mentally ill_!” Franco told him, frustrated. It was a label he had been fighting for years.

“Almost everyone you meet could be diagnosed with a mental illness, Franco—depression, anxiety, phobias, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, obsessive compulsive disorder. You at least have the advantage of being aware that you need help and you’re getting it.”

Franco responded with a look of disdain.

“Do you know who would be interesting to study from an academic standpoint?” Kevin asked a leading question. “Those weirdos that never get depressed or have an anxiety disorder or whatever. How do you get through life without getting a little messed up, right? We’re the normal ones when you think about it.”

Franco laughed. “Yeah, we should figure out what makes those people tick and bottle it and sell it,” he agreed, amused at the idea that he and Kevin were among the normal population after all.

Regarding his own level of disordered thinking, Franco was hesitant, even frightened. What he already knew was bad—could he really handle finding out there were more awful things in his past and they were even worse? “What if I do this hypnosis and it… breaks me?”

“You won’t break,” Kevin promised. “I won’t let you break. You can think about whether you want to pursue this. You know that. You have been functioning well. My concern is your ability to deal with threats—real or perceived.”

“I do know that. I also don’t like playing possibilities over and over in my head. I kind of just want to get to answers, if there are any, and be done with it. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I would hit one of the kids like that again. I’m horrified that that happened.”

“To be fair to yourself, you wouldn’t have hit Cameron if he hadn’t given you a drug that caused you to hallucinate. I know that doesn’t make you feel better about it. But you can’t hang onto that guilt. You have never posed a danger to Elizabeth or the kids before and you won’t again.”

“The only way to be sure of that is to figure out what made me feel like I had to defend myself though. I have to… recover whatever there is to find.”

“If that is what you want, I fully support that.”

He took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Okay, doc, knock me out. Find out why Bobby thinks he’s dead. Or… someone thinks Bobby is dead.” He tapped his forehead. “Hello, in there! We’re coming to you get you.” He tried to mask his fears with an attempt at humor.

Kevin took his time working with Franco moving him from the somewhat agitated state he was currently in into a calm state that could offer therapeutic benefit. He spoke reassurances in monotones. He started several countdowns going backwards to get Franco to relax. He repeated these counts several times. He wanted Franco to block out every external factor but his voice.

Franco’s head slumped. His mind was a blank canvas, waiting for him to find the picture that Kevin told him he could locate.

“Take a deep breath,” Kevin told him. “Take your time. You are going to tell me what you see. You do not have to feel, taste, smell, or hear anything. If your other senses want to allow you to have that knowledge, you can _know it_ without having to _reexperience the sensations_.” Kevin was trying to make the retrieval process as bearable as he could for his patient. This was not about reveling in gory details. Their goal was to find answers—just answers. “Do you understand?” Kevin asked.

Franco nodded.

“You are completely safe in this room. You will hear my voice. My voice will be a consistent reminder you that you are safe, and you can get out of this trance at any time. You have free will. You are in control. I am here to help you.” Kevin knew that it was of utmost importance to give Franco control in facing what could be the worst memory filed away in his mind. “If you need help, you can ask me for help at any time. Do you understand?” Kevin checked the small camera that was recording the session. Franco had agreed to allow recording for both his personal sanity and for Kevin’s professional benefit.

Franco nodded again.

“You are going to go into the deepest state of hypnosis that your mind will allow. You know how to do this. It will come naturally. I want you to relax and go into a deeper trance as I count backward. Each number will take you deeper and deeper and deeper into your subconscious memory.” Kevin’s voice remained even and methodical. He slowly counted backward from ten to one, reminding Franco that he was safe and that he would become completely relaxed. When he ended at one, he saw that Franco’s body held no tension. He was breathing evenly and slowly.

“Can you find the last time in your life that you accepted that you were Bobby?”

He nodded.

“That’s good. Bobby has important information. I would like to talk to Bobby. Is that okay?”

“Why should I let you talk to Bobby?” Franco asked, but his voice was harsher than his normal tone.

Kevin realized he had contacted with a protective alter, maybe the First Alter that he expected must exist. “I’m trying to help Franco. We believe Bobby has important information.”

“Bobby doesn’t talk. They killed him.”

“Do you speak for Bobby?”

“I don’t speak either. I don’t even exist.”

“You’re speaking now. You must exist. Do you have a name?”

“No, I don’t have a name, you idiot. Who or what would have taken the time to give me a name?”

Kevin could tell this alter was extremely angry. “You must think of yourself in some term…”

“Trash.”

“Trash?” Kevin repeated. “That is a harsh way to view yourself.”

He shrugged. “It fits. I’m used up, discarded garbage.”

“I believe you have been protecting Bobby and Franco for a very long time.”

“I didn’t protect Bobby. I let him go with Uncle Jim. I didn’t leave our bedroom.”

“I can sense that you’re angry. Who makes you angry?”

“The mother.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“She chose Uncle Jim over Andy and Bobby. She believed him.”

“She should not have believed him.”

“But she did, because that’s who she thought I was too—just Trash. Evil. A liar.”

“It must have been devastating.”

“It’s her fault they killed Bobby. She refused to see what was right in front of her stupid face.”

“Bobby isn’t actually dead,” Kevin told Trash. “He’s a part of the complex working system that has gotten you to this point. He’s part of a living mind.”

Franco’s jaw was clenched tightly.

“I want to help you.” Kevin told him. “I could be more helpful if I could talk to Bobby, if he could tell me what happened.”

“Bobby isn’t like me. I can handle what happens. I won’t let you hurt him.”

“I only want to help. I promise you that. I understand, to some extent, what you all went through. I care about your well-being and your family.”

Trash considered what the therapist claimed. “If you hurt Bobby, I will stop him from talking. Do you understand that?”

“Yes. I have no desire to hurt Bobby. I only want to help Bobby, Franco, and you all recover.”

He nodded. “I’ll be watching.”

“Okay,” Kevin agreed. “Can I speak to Bobby?”

“I’m Bobby,” a very soft voice answered.

“Bobby, we are here to help you. That’s all. We want to find out where the pain comes from, where the fear comes from. Will you take me to those places?”

“Okay,” Bobby answered in a whisper. Bobby seemed smaller than Franco and his voice was very soft. He embodied fear as distinctly as Trash embodied rage and protectiveness. Kevin had worked with other DID patients and they often had some variant appearances or mannerisms. Bobby was clearly a young child based on his posturing and voice.

“Something happened,” Kevin told him. “I don’t know what happened. I need you to find the memories you have, and I want you to try to tell me.” He saw that Bobby nodded in agreement.

Bobby looked for something, waiting to find it.

“You’ll know it when you find it,” Kevin told him, sensing that he was trying to say something just to say it. “There’s no hurry.”

A few minutes passed. Bobby opened his eyes, but they appeared glassy. “It’s gray. There’s a room. Everything is gray.”

“Can you tell about the room, anything at all?”

“I always dream in color,” Bobby told him. “I don’t dream in black and white.”

“You’re not dreaming,” Kevin reminded him. “It’s okay if you don’t see colors. You don’t have to.”

Bobby nodded. His eyes moved as if he were taking in the surroundings in his memory. “There are two beds. I’m sitting on the bed that’s farthest from the door.” He looked to his right. “There’s one of those air conditioner/ heater things by the bed and there are really thick curtains over the window. He told me not to touch the curtains. There’s a TV and a bathroom. It’s close to my bed.”

“You’re doing very well.”

“I was in a car before. I think it was for a long time because he stopped to get gas.”

“Do you remember anything about the gas station?”

“I saw a lady from school. But not a teacher lady. She’s a mom, and her hair was in a ponytail, and she was yelling at her son not to run in front of a car that was moving. I wanted to run in front of the moving car too. I wanted it to hit me so I could go away.”

Kevin made a handwritten note of the early onset of suicidal ideation. “Do you know her name or her son’s name?”

“No. I’ve just seen her at school.”

“How long were you in the car after you saw the lady you recognized?”

“It was dark when we stopped. It was warm, like that heavy warmth that sits on your skin. I think it was supposed to rain.”

“Very good,” Kevin encouraged him. “You remember a lot of details.” Kevin was endlessly fascinated with the intellectual aptitude Bobby had at a young age. “Just tell me whatever you can. I’m going to make sure you’re safe. It’s just a memory. It can’t hurt you.”

“He got two beds because he wanted the lady at the desk to think I was his son and that we were normal. He said he was in town on business and showing his boy the ropes. But he lied about his name.” He paused for a moment. “Reginald.”

“Reginald?” Kevin repeated.

“That’s the name he used.”

“You’re doing very well.” Kevin waited for him to continue.

“He’s not my dad. I don’t—I don’t have a dad. My dad didn’t want me because he knew I was born evil.”

Kevin did not correct Bobby. The important things were what Bobby believed at this time in his life, whether they were accurate or not.

“He always got a room with two beds.”

Kevin shook his head, realizing the implication. Franco’s eyes were closed. He didn’t see Kevin react.

“We were in the room, but he was going to get food. He wouldn’t go get anything for us to eat until I… you know.” He shifted, uncomfortable. “He said he’d had to wait all day. He had been thinking about me all day…” He stopped, scowling with disgust.

“You can move ahead,” Kevin told him. “You don’t have to relive it.”

Bobby took a deep breath. “At least it was fast.”

“It’s okay,” Kevin assured him. “You made it through. Did he take you with him?”

“No.” He was quiet for several minutes. “Another man came in. And a girl.”

“Do you know the man and the girl?”

“No. I never know them. It’s weird that there’s a girl. I didn’t think he liked girls.”

“Can you tell me about the girl?” Kevin called on every bit of training and experience he had to remain nonreactive. These crimes against children had been going on since the beginning of time.

“She’s older than me. Like maybe 12 or 14. She’s heavy. Uncle Jim called her fat and was mad at the other man. The other man said something really mean and the girl cried.”

“Can you tell me what he said?”

“I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s already scared.”

“She can’t hear you. It’s okay.”

“The other man told Uncle Jim something.” He grimaced. “I don’t remember exactly. But it was mean because he was making fun of her and saying that it didn’t matter what she looked like. But he said it in a bad way, and she cried. I’m not going to repeat it.”

“Can you tell me anything else?”

“I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. Not while they were in the room.”

“You said the girl was scared. Do you remember how you felt?”

“I don’t have feelings. There’s no point. It’s just the way things are.”

Kevin reluctantly accepted the answer and waited for Bobby to continue.

“Uncle Jim was going to get food. He left the other man there and told him to watch me, but he had better not touch me.”

“Do you know what the other man looked like?”

“I never saw his face.”

“Never?”

“I didn’t want to see it, so I didn’t see it.”

Kevin nodded. The simplicity of the logic was somehow heartbreaking.

“I stayed on my bed. I covered up and watched the wall. It was ugly wallpaper with people and umbrellas. He turned on the TV loud. I tried not to hear him—he was doing stuff to the girl. I heard her asking him to stop.” He frowned. “I guess she doesn’t know yet.”

“Know what?”

“That man doesn’t care if she’s scared or if he hurts her. Or maybe she just does what she has to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“He might want her to say no. It might be his thing.” Bobby looked toward Kevin, but he never made eye contact. “You have to do what they want. And if you cooperate, it’s over faster.”

Kevin was disgusted by what he was hearing. He kept his composure. His job did not allow him to allow Bobby to see that he had an emotional reaction. “It’s okay, Bobby. It’s a memory. You’re safe now. I just want to help you.”

“I wish you could help her.”

“I wish I could help her too. I’m sad for you that you couldn’t help her even though you wanted to.”

“He’ll be on me before long.”

Kevin was taken aback by the completely nonchalant, matter-of-fact tone of the statement. “You know what to expect?”

“Not _exactly_ , but… it’s all about the same, I guess. They’re all the same.”

“There have been others?”

He nodded. “He always gets a room with two beds.”

Kevin ran his hand over his face, taking a deep breath himself. He found it difficult to stay objective, to not react. Kevin played his role as psychiatrist. He said the right things in the right tone of voice. “Remember you’re completely safe. You’re only telling me about a memory. It happened a long time ago. It can’t hurt you now. You can continue when you’re ready.”

Bobby waited. Kevin wondered if he wanted to be taken out of the trance. “Bobby?”

“I was scared when Uncle Jim came back. I kind of know what to expect with him. Strangers are different.” Bobby crinkled his nose, disgusted. “Ugh, he’s nasty. He’s sweaty and he smells bad.”

“You don’t have to remember what he smelled like.”

“I don’t exactly. I just know he smelled bad. I think he drank whiskey or something like that and he has that cigarette taste. He’s wet—sweaty.” Bobby looked very much like he was going to be sick. He shifted, moving like he was trying to get away from the stranger. “Help me,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to relive it, Bobby. Move past whatever he did. It’s okay. We’re trying to find answers. You’re in control. You know where the answers are, even if you don’t know you know where the answers are. Take a deep breath. I’m going to count down from five and you’re going to be completely relaxed. Just breathe. Just breathe.” He counted down from five to one and Bobby had returned to the less agitated version of himself.

“Bobby, what do we need to understand to help you get better? What happened to you to make your protector say that _they killed Bobby_?”

“The girl,” he answered softly. “Uncle Jim was with her while Sweaty Nasty Man was on me.” He paused again. “Uncle Jim was mean to her. He told her she was ugly, and she better be glad someone would touch her now because she was disgusting.”

“That was very cruel,” Kevin told him. It fascinated him that Bobby was empathetic enough to care about a stranger when this was happening. He claimed he didn’t feel anything, but he clearly did feel for the other child. Many children would have been content with the other child being hurt if kept them from personally experiencing more pain. For a future serial killer, Bobby had had a very kind soul as a child. Bobby was like who Franco was now.

“He made her follow him to my bed. I was confused. He told me to do something bad to her. I said I didn’t want to hurt her. He said I didn’t have a choice. He said what I wanted didn’t matter. He laughed and the other man laughed. They said I was useless and stupid.”

Kevin was thoroughly disgusted by what was happening in this motel room so many years ago. He let Bobby tell him at his own pace. It was a torturous process for him as a therapist. He had to balance the odds of what could be reasonably tolerated with the risk of never being able to get to the memory again.

“The—the girl. She told me to just mind them because if I didn’t, they would punish both of us.” Once more, he was trying to physically get out of his own memories, backing away from nothing. “I didn’t know what to do.” He looked blankly toward Kevin again. “I don’t want to be like them.”

“You aren’t like them. You have no control in this situation. You and the girl are trying to survive.”

“Her owner was laughing. He told her to slap me. She whispered that she was sorry, but she did it anyway. They were laughing—not the girl—but them. She didn’t want to be there either, you know.”

“I know,” Kevin assured him.

“They were loud. Everything was loud. The rain was loud. They said I was a little fairy who didn’t like girls. I don’t like any of it. I’m not like them. I tried to run away. I was going to run out the door and just keep running. The nasty man, he caught me and pushed me against the door and started to choke me. He said Uncle Jim promised him I was obedient. Uncle Jim told him to let go of me and said he got his money’s worth. He let go. The nasty man said they had a deal and he could do whatever he wanted. Uncle Jim disagreed and they argued. The man grabbed me again and told Uncle Jim to try to stop him. Uncle Jim walked away, and he was choking me, and I was trying to pull his hands away—” Bobby covered his face with both hands and screamed. “Oh my god. Oh my god.” He vigorously wiped at his face, “Get it off of me!” He was physically fighting the terrifying event that he had just recalled. 

“Bobby, what happened?” Kevin asked, certain this was the breakthrough moment.

“No!” Bobby screamed. “No! Stop! Don’t hurt her!” Bobby curled into himself sobbing.

“You’re safe now, Bobby. This is over. Move away from whatever just happened. Find a safe place. Listen to my voice.” Kevin kept his tone and cadence of speech steady. “Keep listening to my voice. Let my voice help you find a safe place. Come closer to me and further away from what happened.”

Bobby, still trembling with terror, began to settle slowly.

Kevin gave him time to find safety, assuring him that no one was going to hurt him here. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“He shot the man,” Bobby choked out in a strained whisper. “His… his brains and eyes and skin were all over my face and hands. And blood all over me and—” He was shaking. “The girl. He shot the girl. It’s my fault. It’s my fault he shot the girl.” He choked out the story while sobbing from the long pent up anguish.

Kevin shook his head, repulsed by what the child alter had experienced. “Can I sit with you, Bobby?” he asked. He approached his patient. “It’s okay. Just cry it out, cry out that fear and sadness.” Kevin opted to let Bobby remain in the trance to release some of the emotional weight. He didn’t make the decision lightly. He believed allowing Bobby to express his sorrow would be beneficial in the long run and could prevent a second visit into this territory. He sat next to him, just so he would know he wasn’t alone.

After a several minutes of Bobby’s paralyzing sorrow passed, Kevin said, “I’m going to bring you back. I’m right here if you need me. I’m here to keep you safe.” Franco’s body was not physically capable of handling much more of the stress.

“Help me,” Bobby whispered, and he squeezed Kevin’s hand, holding on as if his life depended on it. He buried his head against Kevin’s shoulder, trying to shield out the despicable people in his memory. “Make it stop.”

Kevin offered reassurances to bring him out of the abomination he had recalled. “Your face is clean. Your hands and body are clean. You’re completely safe. All of that is in the past. It’s _so far_ in the past. It does not have the power to ever hurt you again. Take a deep breath and let it out.”

He was calmer once Kevin told him he wasn’t covered in blood. He was relieved that his hands were clean. He let go of Kevin’s hand.

“You can come out of this trance when you’re ready. I’m going to count from one to ten. With each number, you will move forward, closer to right now. You will be present with me.” He began counting upward. When he got to 8, Franco opened his eyes and pulled away from Kevin.

He was in shock. “She’s dead. He, he shot the girl.” He could hardly breathe. “It’s my fault he shot the girl.”

“No. No.” Kevin did his best to put an immediate halt to the self-blame. “You had absolutely no control in that horrendous situation. You are just as much of a victim as she was.”

“He killed her. He… he killed me. Bobby… couldn’t exist after that. Uncle Jim would kill him if he told anyone. And he would kill Mama. He died to keep the secret.”

Franco continued. “He said we had to shower. He used hot water and a lot of soap and shampoo. I saw blood running down the drain of the shower. After we took a shower, we put on clean clothes. They were there, in the room. Just dead bodies with blood everywhere and the TV on so loud that it hurt my ears. Uncle Jim—he pushed me against the wall and put the gun in my mouth and told me he could get rid of me just as easily. He said he would feed me that gun I didn’t promise to keep my mouth shut. And then he would go find Mama and kill her, and he would track down Andy and kill him. He said I had to forget everything. He sent me to the car and I just sat there. I saw their bodies whether my eyes were open or closed. It was the middle of the night and it had been raining. He came out of the motel and drove away. He talked a lot and yelled at me the whole way back home. He told me he paid in cash and gave them a false name. He never parked in the motel parking lot. And it was a rented car. He did that—he rented cars when he took me out of town. He said he was going to have to leave me behind. He had to move on. I wanted him to leave and I was happy he was going to leave, but I was afraid. I thought the cops might come after me and blame me. He said I had to forget it. He said it was over. He would never forget me, but I had to forget him. I had to forget everything I had ever seen or done. Everything he had ever said or done. I prayed the whole way home: _Let it be over, let it be over, let it be over_.”

Kevin listened, afraid that if he spoke, Franco would stop talking or lose his grasp on the memories that were rushing back to him.

“He stopped at an airport and turned in the rental car but got another one. He told them he didn’t like that car because it was making a weird sound. It wasn’t though. He took me to Betsy and told me to go to bed. He came to my bed later that night to say goodbye. He told me I was special. He was gone the next day. I never saw him again until he came here to Port Charles. I did what he said. I forgot everything. And I forgot Bobby. Bobby was gone too.”

Franco fell backwards, resting against the couch. He was depleted of all energy, all strength, and all emotions. “There’s nothing left. I don’t even exist. I’m a fraud.”

“ _You exist_ ,” he assured his patient. “You are real. You are loved. You are very important to just the right number of people. You survived _hell_. And you lived to tell about it.”

Franco’s expression was blank.

“Why do you think you’re a fraud?” Kevin asked.

“Franco is a character. I just played a character because Bobby… I couldn’t be Bobby. It’s all mixed up and messed up and I lost what was real.”

“That’s partly this disorder and partly the tumor you had on your frontal lobe. You lost touch with reality because of an assault on your neurological pathways. If the tumor had been on your occipital lobe, you would have lost part of your vision.”

“I really shouldn’t be here.”

“In this office?”

“Alive.”

“But you are.”

Franco just looked at him, too tired to express himself any further.

“You never let Jim Harvey or anyone else destroy your heart. Your mind got a little—maybe a lot—wrecked, but the Franco I know now is who Bobby would have grown up to be and that’s pretty damn impressive.”

Franco tried unsuccessfully to smile. “Kiki loved me first. She was the first person who believed in me, who saw any good at all in me. I miss my baby girl.”

“I know you do,” Kevin nodded. “She would be so proud of how far you have come in this life. I absolutely have no doubt about that.”

“I never told her. I’m glad I never told Kiki. And Elizabeth… I don’t know why she loves me.”

“She’s very perceptive. She sees who you are. Just like her boys do.”

“Not Cam. He hates me.”

“Cameron doesn’t hate you.”

“I’m pretty sure he does,” Franco argued.

“He’s a teenage boy who has had a lot of men in his life come and promise to stay forever and then leave.”

“I don’t blame him for wanting me to leave too.”

“Okay, so what are you saying?”

Franco shrugged. “I love him. I want him to be happy. But I’m not leaving Elizabeth or those kids. Not for anything. He can’t run me off.”

“Good,” Kevin nodded. “A sixteen-year-old boy should not rule a household. He has to learn to compromise too.”

“Am I being selfish?”

“Not at all. I think I understand you as well as anyone could. There’s even a _kinship_ between us—and not just because we both married Webber women. You are profoundly complicated. But, when it comes down to it, you are profoundly strong and good. To survive the repetitive abuse that you endured and still become the man you are now…” He shook his head. It was miraculous. “You are, without question, the most unique individual I have ever worked with.”

Franco sighed. He couldn’t find any words to respond.

“You’re wiped out, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“We’ll talk later. I want you to stay here and rest. You know where the water and snacks are if you need something to eat or drink. No one will bother you. I’ll lock the door, but you can unlock it from inside if you want to leave.” He left his patient in his office and turned out the light. He had cleared his entire day for this session as it was. He couldn’t send Franco immediately out into the real world after that. He needed time to process it and calm his hurricane of thoughts and emotions.

Kevin was astounded by everything he had been told. He would contact Elizabeth to bring her into the loop. He wanted to find out the identity of the man and girl that Jim Harvey had killed. If he could present the real-world evidence, Franco would be more likely to believe in himself. It was time to make a call to Curtis Ashford. Curtis owed him one (and a big one at that).


	6. Finding Betsy

Cam was a somewhat unwilling participant in Drew’s search for Betsy Frank. Drew used the sources at his disposal to find her last known address. Elizabeth agreed to send Cam on the trip with his uncle for a few reasons—to potentially influence Betsy into being more forthcoming, to help Drew notice things he might miss otherwise, and just to make him stew in his stupidity for a while, completely banned from any of his electronic devices.

Drew slowly drove past the houses in the neighborhood, looking for the correct number on a mailbox or driveway marker. Cameron was tasked with looking at the numbers on one side of the road and he was looking on the other.

“That’s it,” Cam said, pointing to a black mailbox with white numbers several yards in front of them.

Drew slowly turned into the driveway. He noticed a light was on in one of the main rooms. He hoped that meant Betsy was home. He had not called ahead, afraid that she would take off and hide, as history told him she was prone to do when she felt threatened.

Cam followed Drew to the doorstep and Drew rang the bell. He noticed curtains at the window beside the door were pulled back to glance outside. A few minutes later, a woman with long black and gray hair opened the door. She was covered in a well-worn pink and white bathrobe. “Can I help you?” she asked, bunching the robe more tightly closed. She seemed nervous.

Drew started. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met last year. I’m the boy you raised for a few years. You called me Andy.”

Betsy’s face lit up with joy. “Andy! Of course! Come on in,” she opened the door to let them into her home. She gave Drew a hug which he reciprocated. 

It was a small house, but quite efficient for a single woman. There was a bit of clutter—mostly magazines and mail that could be discarded, but it was well kept and had a nice homey fragrance like cinnamon and cloves wafting from a nearby scented wax warmer.

“Is this your son, Andy?” She asked, nodding toward Cameron.

“No, Betsy. This is Fr-Bobby’s stepson, Cameron.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Cameron offered, studying the house and the woman as inconspicuously as possible.

“Did Bobby come with you?” she asked. Her eyes were full of hope. It had been so long since she had had a conversation with her son. She had seen on the news that he had gotten married and helped trap a serial killer, but he didn’t reach out to her. She felt she was not welcome to reach out to him at this point.

“Um, no,” Drew answered. He had practiced what he could say and how he could approach her to get information he needed without her shutting down. “May we sit?” he asked, nodding toward the sofa and loveseat in the living area.

“Of course, you can,” Betsy said. “Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink? I don’t keep much but bottled water. I can make coffee or tea though.”

“Oh, we’re fine, thank you. I’m sure you’re just surprised to see us,” Drew offered. His voice was kind. He knew she would recoil from any hint of anger. He led Betsy to the couch and sat with her, holding her hand hoping to make her feel like they were still connected somehow after all these years. Cameron took the loveseat. He was still unsure how he was going to be of any use.

“I’m just going to be honest with you, Betsy,” Drew started. “Bobby had a medical setback and it affected his memories.”

“Another tumor?” Betsy asked, looking stricken. “Is he going to be okay?”

“No, not a tumor. A bad reaction to… an antibiotic. There’s a better chance that he will be okay if you can help us,” Drew told her. “Bobby needs you right now, Betsy.”

She looked down, ashamed that she had failed him so many times in the past. “What can I do?”

“We need all the information about Jim Harvey that you can provide.”

She sucked in her breath. “I think we should leave that alone.” She glanced at Cameron, uneasy that this child even knew Jim Harvey’s name.

“Betsy,” Drew rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “We’re past the point of trying to bury him. Once he showed up and Bobby started to remember him… it was like a dam breaking open.”

“I didn’t know what he was doing,” Betsy almost wailed. “I didn’t know he was evil.”

“I understand that,” Drew told her. “But you figured it out eventually, right? And you got Bobby away from him.”

“I ruined both of your lives by believing him when he said Bobby tried to hurt you. I never should have sent you away.”

“What happened, happened,” Drew told her. He didn’t really have the patience to make her feel less responsible. Her bad judgment had led to a lot of unnecessary pain. He was there for one reason—to learn everything he could about Bobby, Andy, and Jim Harvey, everything beyond the synopsis that Betsy had given him.

“Look, Mom—can I call you mom?” He continued when she nodded. “Would you be willing to go back to Port Charles with me so that you can help Bobby and me and his doctors fill in some gaps?”

Betsy hesitated. “If Bobby wanted me there, he would ask me to be there.”

“He’s not in a position to ask you right now.”

“No, Andy. I’m sorry. I’m not talking to any more doctors or discussing this with you or Bobby or anyone else.”

Drew sighed heavily. Her refusal to help made him angry, but he knew he would get nowhere if he reacted in anger. He decided to try another approach. “All right, I get it that it’s hard for you to revisit the past. But I think you’re the kind of mother who saved everything she could about her boys because you loved us so much. Did you do that?”

“Guilty,” she nodded, smiling because he made her sound like a loving mother. “I was so proud of you both. You were very different, but both so talented and special.”

“Okay, what I need is to see the stuff you saved, the photographs, the schoolwork, Bobby’s drawings. He was drawing when he was very young, right?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “It came naturally for him—like running and swimming did for you.”

Drew smiled. He had no memory of being able to swim as a small child, but it made him happy to learn a little something about himself. “If I promise to bring back everything, will you please let me take all those things back to Port Charles so Bobby, Elizabeth, and his doctor can go through them? We’re only trying to help. We need to figure out what happened after I went to live in the orphanage.”

Betsy’s countenance darkened. “Nothing good.”

“Can you tell me about it?” Drew hoped she would be more forthcoming with the request to go to Port Charles removed.

“I failed my child. I didn’t see what was happening. Bobby begged me over and over to leave Jim, to take him away. He told me that Jim hurt him. Jim always excused it by saying he had to have a firm hand with Bobby because of his behavior. I didn’t know what Bobby meant. He begged me to not make him go on trips with Jim. But I was a nurse, Andy. I worked on weekends and I worked long shifts. Jim was a real estate developer. He said he had to scout new locations and weekends were the best time to do it. He said it was silly to pay for a babysitter just so Bobby could be spoiled by getting what he wanted. I thought he was so good with Bobby. I thought he was good to Bobby. I never understood what Bobby was trying to tell me, not until too much time had passed.”

“What was Bobby telling you?”

“Jim was evil, and Bobby lived in fear. I can’t even answer your questions about what happened. Bobby shut down. He drew. He drew terrible things. I thought I should destroy them, but part of me thought it would be a betrayal. Come with me,” she led them to a spare bedroom.

It was housed several boxes, some were marked “BOBBY.” There were a couple marked “ANDY.”

“When did you realize Jim was evil?” Drew asked. He pointed to some boxes for Cameron to start getting together to take to the vehicle.

“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t for a long time. Eventually Jim left on his own. Bobby had night terrors for a long time—always about Uncle Jim coming back or having never left. “He begged me to keep Jim away. He begged me to keep Jim from hurting him.”

Betsy lifted a box and gave it to Drew. “I got nosy. Or maybe it’s called concerned when you’re a parent. His teachers told me he had behavior problems at school. He showed no interest in making friends. He refused to participate in physical education. He would accept corporal punishment before he would interact with his classmates in PE. He was never phased by corporal punishment. He was afraid of male authority figures and defied them every chance he could. A teacher showed me some of his drawings that caused her concern. I was distraught. I realized that monster had done unspeakable things to my little boy. I assured the teacher that the man was out of our lives. But I was afraid they would send DHS. I took Bobby and ran. We moved to a new school district and I told the administration ahead of time that he had been hurt and was not sociable. They worked around it. He got a special ruling that let him get accommodations for his emotional problems. He made up PE credit with academic projects. Meanwhile, I told Bobby that it had all been a dream. Uncle Jim wasn’t real. Neither were you. I wanted to protect him from those memories.”

“Did he get better when you moved?”

Betsy sighed. “I knew he was never, I hate to say the word _right_ , but I guess it would be accurate. He had lingering problems. He was isolated, had trouble making friends, and got angry easily, especially at home. He continued to have nightmares. He just would wake up in the middle of the night and draw or write. He slept very little that I could tell. Sometimes he told me he wished he had a brother so he would have a friend. I encouraged him to try to make friends, but he didn’t trust anyone.”

“Well, we found our way back to each other somehow,” Drew told her, trying to leave her with a positive outcome.

Betsy took one of the boxes labeled with Andy’s name. “I kept pictures. I tried to keep all the pictures of you and Bobby together away from Bobby. I didn’t want him to see them. But they’re in here.”

Drew took the box, overwhelmed by the knowledge of what was inside—pieces of his own life. His stomach filled with the fluttering excitement of a potential breakthrough. “I cannot thank you enough,” he told her.

“If I could go back, I would change it all,” Betsy told him.

“We can’t go back, Mom. Only forward. Are you sure you don’t want to join Cameron and me and go back to Port Charles to visit Bobby?”

She sighed, tears in her eyes. “I’m certain that if Bobby is going through hard times, I would only make it worse. Maybe one day I can see him again, but I won’t go until he asks me. I can’t force my way into his life.”

Drew nodded. As much as he hated that it was true, Betsy might be a detriment to Franco’s journey through recovery. “Can I call you? If I have questions?”

“Andy, you can call me any time. I would love to hear from you.”

Drew agreed to make a better effort to stay in touch and he and Cameron took all the boxes to the car. Though Betsy offered to let them stay the night, Drew refused. He said it was important to get back to Port Charles.


	7. Ava Has Answers

Ava Jerome answered the knock on her door, pleasantly surprised to find one of the few people she considered a friend. “Franco! Come on in.” She motioned for him to have a seat.

“What’s your poison?” she asked, heading to her well-stocked bar.

“I can’t drink right now,” he answered, making himself comfortable. “I just got out of the hospital.”

Even as drained as he was, his night had been restless. There was no stopping the barrage of thoughts and questions he had swirling through his mind. Since Aiden and Jake had an appointment with dentist, Franco took the opportunity to look for the one person he thought might be able to answer some questions about his misspent youth.

Ava poured a glass of water over ice and brought it to him. “I’m glad to see you’re better. Scotty told me you had bad reaction to an antibiotic or something.”

“Is that what you heard?” He asked. “That’s good. We can go with that.”

“Not an antibiotic?” she easily deduced.

He shook his head.

“What happened?” she laughed.

“Someone made a stupid mistake,” he shrugged it off. “ _Not me_ , by the way. I at least have that.”

“I hope you’re here to tell me you have an abundance of masterpieces that you need to unload so we can both get some lovely checks with lots of zeroes.”

“Not exactly,” Franco answered, but he used her inquiry to leap into his reason for being there. “Do you remember when we met?”

She smirked. “Of course, I do. You had a reputation as one to watch and I _really enjoyed_ watching you when you walked into my brand-new gallery. We were both just getting started and we were a match made right in heaven—or hell, depending on the day.” Every word Ava said had a sensual undertone.

“I’m not trying to be indelicate, but when did we get involved—physically?”

“I think I’m insulted,” Ava’s face confirmed that she was indeed aggrieved.

“No, don’t be insulted,” he told her. “I’ve got holes in memories. There are some giant, gaping periods of time that I am trying to piece back together.”

Her frown turned into a different kind of frown. “What’s going on? What did that not-antibiotic do to you?”

He sighed. “It’s not exactly related to the _not-antibiotic_. I’ve had memory issues I guess most of my life that I pretty much ignored, but they’re getting harder to ignore.” He leaned forward. “But one thing I do remember is that I truly cared about you. I don’t remember caring about anyone before you. So, you’re kind of special, Ms. Jerome.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Ava smiled, easily won over by his charm. She sipped her martini.

“In addition, you’re the only person who has a connection to my past that I think won’t lie to me.”

“Now, that’s just sad,” Ava laughed. She had never been known for her honesty. “Well, if you need to know, we began our torrid affair about thirty minutes after I welcomed you into my office and locked the door.”

“Seriously?”

She tilted her head, surprised that he would doubt it. “You, my friend, were so hot, so luscious, and so _mine_.”

“Who made the first move?”

“Me,” she laughed, proud of the memory. “I said something along the lines of now that I had seen what you could do to a canvas, I wanted to see what you could do to a woman. And I got lucky that you weren’t batting for the other team.”

“Why would you say that?” he asked. He hated that it made him feel ashamed that she would consider it, but he would never want anyone to think he wanted what Jim Harvey had done to him even when intellectually he knew that being sexually abused by a man and being a homosexual were not the same.

“Honey, you know the art world,” she waved off her comment. “Finding a straight man, especially one as delicious as you are, is still a rarity.”

“So, we just did it in your office?” he asked.

Her brow furrowed. “You _really_ don’t remember this?”

“I remember I cared about you. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”

“ _Were_?” she teased.

“You’re still in the Top Five.” He saw her expression. “Top Two,” he corrected.

“I’ll let that slide in deference to your happy marriage.”

“Was I… _weird_?”

“Franco, you’re _still_ weird,” Ava blushed with her flippant answer. She realized he was truly desperate for some answers. She wanted to have some lighthearted fun with their past connection, but she was concerned by how rattled he seemed about learning the truth. “Where is this coming from? And what do you mean by _weird_?”

He sighed. He was asking her personal questions. He probably owed her at least a minimal explanation. “Kevin thinks I may have some… problems because, when it comes down to it, I don’t know a whole lot about my own life. I’m just trying to figure it out.”

“Oh,” she told said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She sipped her martini while giving his question some thought. “You were sweetly hesitant—a very unexpected contrast to your artwork, I must say.” Ava was tickled by his embarrassment. “I, on the other hand, knew _nothing_ of hesitance. And I brought you over to my side. You were a quick study, my darling. I like to think I helped you let go of some of your inhibitions. Elizabeth is welcome to send me a nice bottle of wine to say thank you anytime.”

“You’re saying I was…?” He wasn’t even sure how he wanted to finish that question.

Ava knew he was putting himself through this conversation for a deeper reason than curiosity. “Look, I may joke a bit, but I don’t think you slept around before we met. We were young. You were introverted and kind of awkward one-on-one, even if you could command and audience. You were utterly fascinating to me. There was the public you that had all this confidence and _Damned-if-I-care_ attitude. Privately, you were kind of _my_ blank canvas. Maybe a little more inexperienced that I would have expected.”

“I had experience,” he admitted in a low voice. “Lots of experience. Horrible experience.”

Ava set her drink down. She felt a lingering sense of protectiveness for her friend and former lover. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

He pushed his hand through his hair. “My mother had a boyfriend when I was very young…” he trailed off. “His interest in her was a way to get to me.”

A surge of fury coursed through every part of Ava’s body. “Who is he? I’ll have him killed. I still know people who can get a job done.”

He made eye contact. “You’re a true friend and my absolute favorite person to conspire with about planning murders that we don’t actually commit.” He tried to laugh. “He’s dead now.”

“He’s lucky he’s dead now.” Ava moved from her seat and joined Franco on her couch. “Did you tell your mom?”

“I tried,” he sighed. “She believed him. He told her and me that I was born bad and deserved to be punished. In the next breath, he told me I was special, and we had a special, secret relationship because I was such a good boy.”

Ava made a sound of disgust. “That must have been confusing.”

“It was.” He hesitated. “He, um… he took me out on some weekend trips.” Franco rubbed the back of his neck, trying to massage away some of the building tension. “Sometimes he wasn’t the only one. I blocked that whole part of my life out for a long time.”

Ava closed her eyes. “That is _barbaric_. Every one of those people should burn in hell. I knew that your mother never was playing with a full deck, but I can’t believe she allowed that to happen right under her nose.”

“Yeah,” he agreed in a whisper. “So, I’ve been working with Kevin. I guess I was too young to handle the stress of it all.”

Ava leaned over and kissed his cheek. “No one could handle that—at any age.”

He nodded.

“Okay, Franco, all kidding aside. “You were young, as was I. But I obviously had more positive life experience than you. We felt a mutual attraction and connection. You were a willing participant and maybe even a little flattered that a wealthy and refined girl like me wanted a boy from the wrong side of the tracks like you. I may have initiated our first encounter, but you got bolder and we sold paintings and made money and had more and more reasons to dive into decadence.”

“Did I ever hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” she was taken aback. “Of course not. You wouldn’t be sitting here today if you had.” She was growing deeply concerned. “Why would you even ask that? You’re not like that at all.”

He sighed. “I had that brain tumor for so long and I started acting out in awful ways. I loathe the idea that I ever could have hurt someone I cared about. _Still_ care about.”

Ava took his hand. “Look, we had to split because you did start having some erratic behavior. I thought you had gotten sucked into the drug scene that was prevalent in our circles and I didn’t want to be around that. You had some anger issues, not directed at me, but just about odd things that I never quite understood. You would get set off so easily sometimes and then be as gentle and loving as before in minutes. It was a whirlwind to keep up with you. You were growing darker and darker with your work. I thought your ego was getting too big. The world we were in led me to some inaccurate conclusions. I guess if we had been accountants, I would have realized you were sick and not assumed you were partying too much.”

“Accountants,” Franco repeated with a laugh. “Can you imagine the monotonous boredom?”

“My dear, we never had monotonous boredom in our lives or in our bed. I promise you that. Damn, I wish I had made more of an impression.”

“Ava, you did make an impression. I told you, you’re the first person I remember caring about… maybe even loving. You know, _a little_.”

Ava teared up. “I might have loved you too. _A little_. That’s why I wanted Kiki to be yours. I wanted to be connected to you forever, even if you were going batshit crazy.”

“Thank you,” he told her. “Kiki, even if she wasn’t really mine… she meant everything to me.”

“ _She was really yours_. We all agreed on that.”

He hugged her as they once more felt the debilitating grief of their shared loss.

Ava pulled away. “If I can help you, you let me know. I want you to get better. Kiki would want that too. I’ve got your back.”

“Always,” Franco told her. They stood, shared a hug, and he kissed her forehead. “I promise that if you get that gallery going again, I will get you a collection to sell. I have three kids to put through college.”

Ava smiled warmly. “I never thought I’d see that day.” She was truly happy he had found a family with Elizabeth. “The only incentive I need is big numbers followed by zeroes.” She closed the door after he left to return to his wife and family, and she prepared another martini. She would forever ask herself if things would have been different if she had let Franco help her raise Kiki. She would have realized he was sick. Kiki would have had a father. And that father would have protected her. Ava would always wonder… 


	8. Going Through the Past

Elizabeth, Franco, and Kevin were seated at the dining table to discuss the hypnosis session. Kevin posited that the sensitivity of the revelations would best be discussed with Elizabeth in the privacy of their home. He quite vividly remembered her reaction to the idea of Jim Harvey hurting Franco when he was a child.

“You don’t have to hear this,” Franco told Elizabeth. “I can keep working through it with Kevin.”

“Do you want me _not_ to hear it?” she asked.

“I want you not to hurt.”

Elizabeth took his hand and rubbed her thumb over it in soft circles. “I want you not to hurt. I want to help you not to hurt.”

Franco was clearly sad about putting more burdens on his wife. He looked to Kevin for help.

“Look at each other,” Kevin told them. “No one loves either one of you more than the person you’re looking at right now. You can keep your pain separate to try to protect each other. Or you can share your life experiences: past, present, and future; good and bad.”

“So, your vote is to tell her,” Franco concluded.

“I won’t love you any less, no matter what it is,” Elizabeth told him.

No matter how many times she told him that, Franco had his doubts. “We’re not playing the video of the session,” he told Kevin. “It’s too much.”

“I agree,” Kevin said as they were disrupted by the front door opening.

Elizabeth was sure she had locked it and got up to see who was there. “Oh, hey,” she said, seeing Cameron with his key in hand, balancing a box in the other. Drew had two boxes in his arms.

They followed her to the kitchen and set the boxes on the table. “I couldn’t get Betsy to come with me,” Drew told them. There are a couple more boxes in the car.” He saw the Franco’s somber expression. “Is this a bad time?” he asked, noting that Kevin was there.

“It’s fine,” Franco answered flatly. “Since you’re here, we can go over this one time. Have a seat.”

“Do you want the other boxes?” Drew asked.

“Bring in the other boxes,” Elizabeth told Cameron.

Cam nodded, relieved to have a reason to leave the adults. “How was Betsy?” he heard his stepfather ask as he walked away from the table.

“She seemed okay, I guess, for Betsy. She didn’t want to talk about the past, but I got a little information from her. She said she was sorry for all her failures. She misses you.” 

He nodded. “What are the boxes?”

“Stuff she kept from our childhoods. Kevin suggested she might have some answers, but since she wouldn’t come with me, I asked if she had any mementos.” He waved toward the boxes, “Here they are.”

Drew noticed that Franco seemed more subdued that usual. “Did you figure something out while we were gone.”

He nodded.

Cam witnessed the exchange as he brought the other boxes inside and set them down. He was uneasy as this was the first time that he had seen Franco lucid since the incident with the drugged coffee.

“Um,” he stammered. “Franco, I owe you an apology.”

Franco glanced his way but said nothing. Cam was a bit surprised. He had to admit that Franco was generally forgiving when he made mistakes.

“Franco?” Elizabeth whispered. She did not want there to be so much tension between her son and her husband.

“If Cameron believes he owes me an apology, he should apologize.”

“Oh,” Cam replied. “I thought I just did.”

“Are you under the impression that the rules of the English language equate owing someone an apology with actually making one?”

Everyone was surprised by the cold response Franco gave him. It was out of character.

“You’re right,” Cam agreed, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“So, you’re saying it’s my fault because I drank the coffee you drugged with an unknown substance and you handed to me?” He was unrelenting about making Cam take responsibility for his own actions.

Cameron was increasingly upset, missing the stepfather who was easygoing. “No, no. That’s not what I mean. I did it. I drugged the coffee and I didn’t know what was in the drug and I didn’t consider that you could have a bad reaction and be hurt. I was stupid and reckless. And it was cruel and unnecessary and overall just the stupidest and worst thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. I promise I didn’t mean to hurt you, Franco. I thought it was supposed to be funny. You got really upset when the drug started affecting you and wound up in the hospital and I scared Mom and Uncle Drew and myself and Jake and Aiden because we all love you and we want you to be part of our family. I promise I will never do anything that stupid and dangerous ever again. I don’t want you to hate me for what I did. I want you to love me like you did before, when you put up with my crap, even when you didn’t deserve to get any crap from me. I’m not going to treat you like that anymore. I saw how much mom and Uncle Drew and Jake and Aiden love you and I realized the reason I have been so hostile is just that I love you too because you’re the only dad who has ever stuck around and I don’t want you to leave me like everyone else does. I thought if you just left already, it would hurt less now than it will later.”

“Okay,” Franco told him. He motioned for him to come closer. “Thank you for acknowledging what you did and especially why you did it. Thank you for realizing that you hurt your mother and brothers, not just me. Thank you for telling me you don’t want me to leave. I do love you, Cameron. I would do anything for you. But I need to be able to trust you too.”

Cameron hugged his stepfather. “You can trust me, I promise. I’ll protect you just the way you try to protect me from now on.”

“Cam, you’re a good kid. Sometimes you’re stupid. But you’re a good kid.”

“Do I need to do anything to help right now?” Cam asked. The weight of guilt he had been carrying was lifted by his stepfather’s forgiveness. “I can help with unpacking the boxes or whatever…”

Elizabeth was quietly wiping tears from her eyes while her husband and son finally made peace with each other. “We were about to discuss some things with Dr. Collins,” she told him. She looked to Franco to get his reaction about the idea of Cameron being there.

“You should probably go upstairs and close your door and put on your headphones,” Franco suggested.

“I want to help, if I can.”

“You can’t.”

Cam nodded and left for his bedroom. The mood in the house was dark and serious.

“What happened while we were gone?” Drew asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Franco told him. “I think we should see what is in those boxes with your name on them. You might remember something about your life. You’ve got to be dying to find out, right?”

Drew had a way of cutting through Franco’s deflection. “It’s been forty some odd years. I can wait a few more minutes.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to,” Franco told him. “I don’t want or need to be the focus of every crappy ass conversation we have to endure.”

“Putting it off won’t change what happened,” Kevin reminded him.

“It’s what happened to me and I don’t want to talk about it,” Franco argued. He stood up and walked away from the table. Elizabeth started to follow, but Kevin motioned for her to remain seated. He approached Franco who was leaning against a wall. 

“It won’t get easier if you keep it a secret,” Kevin told him in a soft voice.

“How the hell would you know?” Franco snapped at him. He tried to step away from Kevin, but Kevin blocked him. “It would be exponentially easier if it was never known by me or anyone else.”

“You need to do this.” Kevin could tell that he was talking to Franco, but that the protective alter was influencing his reactions. 

“You need to get out of my way,” Franco glared at his therapist. “I’m not talking about this. It can stay dead.” He panicked when he thought of how Elizabeth and Drew would react.

“It’s not dead. Remember how we talked about how you can have an alter that thinks it’s dead, but it is not because your brain is not dead.”

“You’re making me sound crazier than everyone already thinks I am.” Franco looked toward Elizabeth and Drew who both were watching him and Kevin. He feared they would be disgusted with him when or if they found out the truth.

Drew picked up on Franco’s need for a break and he took a pocket knife out of his jeans and cut into the packaging tape on one of the boxes labeled with ANDY.

Relieved, Franco returned to the table and sat next to his long-lost brother. Kevin sat near Elizabeth who was having an internal debate over how much she should push Franco for answers.

Drew took some items out of the box including a toy boat that was designed to float in a bathtub, some foam balls in various sizes, toy cars and trains, a coloring book, and a photo album.

“Open it, already!” Franco told him. He was just as eager to see the pictures as Drew was.

Elizabeth and Kevin came and stood over Drew, watching as he turned the pages.

“If you see anything that sparks a memory, make a note of it,” Kevin told him. “We can use it as a starting point for getting your memories back.”

The photographs were simple Polaroid instant camera shots from the life of a single mom with presumed twins. They were usually dressed alike and almost always together. The boys appeared practically inseparable. 

Elizabeth reached out and pointed to one of the two boys with their first birthday cake. She laughed. Andy was looking at the camera and Bobby was sticking his finger in the frosting. “That is adorable.” The cake was shaped like a fire engine and decorated in red and black frosting. There was a single large wax candle in the shape of the number one.

“I bet mom made that cake herself,” Franco commented. He had a flash of memory of his mother’s kitchen cabinet being full of baking pans in various shapes. For a moment, he thought she might have sold decorated cakes to make extra money.

There were more pictures of the boys from the first birthday, but it was evident that it was just Betsy and the kids. The pictures that followed showed the two boys together playing in a park, unwrapping Christmas presents, playing in their home, and looking like a normal family.

“Oh, good grief,” Drew groaned when he came to a photo of himself and Franco when they were about two years old sharing a bathtub. Elizabeth couldn’t help but laugh.

“That is indecent!” Franco was just as horrified as Drew. “Turn the page!”

“Oh, come on,” Elizabeth told them. “You were just babies, and _twins_ at that. Your poor mother had to save time when she could. I mean, can you imagine that woman trying to give one of you a bath while the other one was unattended.”

“Did she have to document it?” Franco asked. He covered his eyes.

“Thank God for bubbles,” Drew commented, turning the page. In a moment, he turned back to the bathtub photo.

“You’re going the wrong way,” Franco told him.

“No, wait...” He picked up the toy boat that had been stored. “Look, this is in the picture too. I think I remember this.”

“Seriously?” Franco asked.

“But we were older.” Drew held onto the toy boat and closed his eyes. “I was in the tub and Betsy was trying to make you get undressed and you threw a fit. Crying, screaming, clawing, kicking at her. You kept telling her no and she was getting more and more frustrated. She got so mad that she sat on the toilet, put you over her knees and gave you a spanking.”

“Be a good boy like your brother,” Franco said softly repeating words he had heard far too often.

“Yeah,” Drew made eye contact, feeling guilty. He could clearly see a very young Bobby, his face red and streaked with tears. “Damn it,” Drew cursed. “You weren’t bruised from Betsy giving you a spanking, but you had welts all over your back and legs. Someone had beat the crap out of you. No wonder you didn’t want to get in the water.”

Franco felt defeated. He wanted Drew to remember things about himself as Andy.

“I asked you what happened. You told me to stay away from Uncle Jim. You made me promise.”

“Do either of you remember if Betsy had a reaction to the obvious beating that Bobby had been through?” Kevin asked.

“She left,” Drew answered. “Said she had to cook supper. Told us to be good. She didn’t say anything about Bobby. She seemed like she just wanted to get away from both of us, I swear.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were wide as she imagined Betsy’s oblivious actions. Even if the boys were three or four, she couldn’t imagine leaving children that young completely unattended in a bathtub.

“Just keep going,” Franco urged Drew to move on to the next pages of photographs. There were some photos of Andy in a swimming pool and suddenly there were pictures of Jim Harvey in the book as well. It was like Satan himself making an encore appearance.

“We’re outside and you’re drawing, not playing,” Drew commented, pointing to Bobby sitting on the deck of the pool, wearing jeans and a shirt. Drew was in swimming shorts and was dripping wet from head to toe.

The pictorial history was far too brief. It gave Drew some clues about his life. Betsy appeared to love both her boys, but his clear memory of her spanking Bobby and walking away made him question how she could have been so easily manipulated by Jim Harvey when it was clear he had been physically hurting one of them. 

“I wish I hadn’t been so stupid,” Drew lamented.

“Hmm?” Franco asked. “You weren’t stupid.”

“I should have told Betsy you were scared of Jim.”

“You were three or four years old,” Franco reminded him.

“I wasn’t exactly you either, was I?” he asked. “It’s like Kevin said, Harvey had to neutralize you to get to me, so you suffered while I got to play and be a kid.”

“Please,” Franco argued. “He just picked one of us to start with. I was just the first target. Maybe he thought I would be easier to manipulate because I was the quiet one. I fought him. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you,” Franco told him.

“If I had known, I wouldn’t let him hurt you either. At least I thought that. I clearly saw that he had beaten the hell out of you. I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t tell mom. I didn’t tell him not to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that,” Franco said. “You have one memory. That’s clearly not the whole story.”

“I could have told her.”

“If you had, he would have said you were lying. He would have convinced her that you were a born evil too. He would have said you needed discipline. She would have believed him and then you’d be as messed up as I am.”

“At least be fair to yourself,” Drew told him. “You have gotten a lot better.”

Franco scoffed. “Yeah, until I drank the coffee and Kevin figured out that I have alternate identities—including one that’s dead.”

“That’s not something to be ashamed of,” Elizabeth told him. Kevin told us that it’s a way to survive severe abuse when you’re that young. We only know because you were hallucinating that you were being threatened. It’s not like you’re out of control and off living secret lives.”

Franco looked at Kevin.

Elizabeth realized he had his doubts. “Franco, we live together. We work together. Trust me, I know where you are 95% of the time. You aren’t behaving in any kind of destructive ways. I would know.”

“I think you should listen to your family,” Kevin said. “I think you should let them listen to you.”

“Fine!” Franco slammed his fist against the table. He closed his eyes and tried to steady himself. Elizabeth sat next to him and Kevin moved to sit across the table from him. “He—” Franco’s voice was barely a whisper. He looked at Kevin. “I can’t do this.” He shook his head. He felt like his entire body was covered in filth. He wanted to run as far away as possible.

Elizabeth wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. “Please let us help you. We just want to help.”

He found her touch and being close to her comforting. He closed his eyes and held onto her. He remembered what he had discovered, but he couldn’t say the words. They would not leave his mouth so that they could never be contained again. He found his thoughts were going black. He just wanted to drift away from the bad things.

Kevin noticed the change in his breathing. He watched him closely, recognizing some of the features he had seen when the Bobby is Dead alter spoke to him.

While Franco’s eyes were closed, Kevin pointed out to Elizabeth and Drew the subtle changes as best as he could nonverbally. “Bobby?” Kevin called to him. He thought that Bobby might have served his purpose, but clearly Franco could not talk about the knowledge Bobby had.

Bobby opened one eye and peered at Kevin with trepidation. “I don’t want to go back,” he told Kevin.

Kevin recognized the soft voice. “You don’t have to go back. Never again,” Kevin promised.

“They’re trying to make me go back,” Bobby whispered.

“No, they just want to find out what happened so they can help.”

“I can’t be helped,” Bobby told him. “I don’t exist,” he whispered.

“You exist. You’ve been isolated because of the knowledge you have. Even with you in isolation, what you know was affecting Franco. You’re part of him. You know things that no one should ever have to know.”

“Right, so I shouldn’t tell.” Bobby told him. “Then _nobody_ knows.”

Elizabeth and Drew were both disconcerted by seeing for themselves that Kevin had been correct that there was an alternate identity cut off from the Franco’s consciousness.

“But, that’s not true. You know. Franco knows. I know.”

“I can keep a secret and you don’t have to tell anyone,” Bobby reasoned with Kevin.

Kevin marveled that this child was attempting to use what seemed like logic to sway him into agreeing to keep a secret.

“Bobby, if you tell what you know, or if you let Franco tell what you know, you won’t hurt all the time. He won’t have that empty hurt that he can’t identify either. It’s time to let it go while people who love you are here to help you.”

Bobby began to shrink away from them, willing himself to disappear.

“I love you,” Elizabeth told him. “Bobby, I love you.” It was the first time Elizabeth had ever addressed Franco by his given name. “Please don’t hide from me. I just want to help.”

“I want to help too,” Drew said. “Do you remember me?” he asked when Bobby looked at him.

Bobby shook his head.

“I’m your brother, Andy. We got separated a long time ago, but we found each other again.”

“Andy?” Bobby repeated.

Drew nodded.

“You got old,” Bobby told him. “You look different.”

Drew chuckled. “Yeah, I got old. And I don’t look quite like I used to. But I’m still your brother and your best friend forever.”

Bobby clearly doubted the promise. He wouldn’t speak to Andy anymore.

“Andy, find a sketch pad,” Elizabeth suggested. “Bobby, I know you don’t want to talk about what happened. Can you draw for us? You’re very good at drawing.”

Bobby touched the paper and crayons that Drew found in a box of the kids’ toys. “Will I get in trouble?”

“Why would you get in trouble?” Kevin asked.

“If I draw something bad.”

“No, you’re not in any trouble at all,” Elizabeth told him. “Sometimes when a person can’t find the right words or the words are too scary to say, they can draw what they want to say. It’s another way of telling a story.”

“I draw stories. But when Mama found my drawings, she was angry. She told me I was making up evil things. She said I lied.”

“Did you draw what happened when you were a kid?” Andy asked, wondering if the drawings were in one of the boxes.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Bobby told him.

“Bobby, did you ever draw what you told me about?”

“Sometimes, I wake up at night and that’s all I can do. I draw because I’m not allowed to speak.”

Kevin was mulling over what Bobby said along with the suggestion Drew had made that Bobby may have already drawn pictures of what he remembered. Bobby had no sense of the passage of time. He was still the child who was in the hotel room. But it wouldn’t hurt to look through the boxes. “Bobby, will you sit with Elizabeth and draw for her? Andy and I want to look for something.”

Bobby agreed. Drew and Kevin moved the boxes to the living room and opened them. Kevin explained to Drew that Bobby didn’t have a sense of time and asked him to look for any journals or drawings. Between them, they found dozens.

“Should we go through them?” Drew asked.

“Let me,” Kevin said. He knew what he was looking for and he knew there may be other depictions of Jim Harvey that were not part of this discussion. It took about ten minutes, but Kevin found what he was looking for.

He told Drew to follow him.

Bobby was silently coloring while Elizabeth watched. He was recreating the hotel room from memory.

“Bobby, I found the story you told me. You did draw it and your mother kept it all these years.” Kevin handed the pages over. The story was depicted in pencil over several pages like a horrific comic book. It was all gray, like Bobby had described to Kevin. “Is it okay if Elizabeth and Andy look at the drawings with us?”

He shrugged. “Mama told me not to talk about it. She told me it wasn’t true, and I had to stop making up bad things. She told me I had to forget all those things I thought about. I had to keep my secrets so she wouldn’t be upset.”

Elizabeth recalled that early on, Franco had told her that Betsy was a sweet woman with good intentions, but she was out of touch with reality. It had been his job to support her in her bubble of delusion. She desperately wished someone had paid attention to him when he was a child and that someone had rescued him. He had had to rescue himself, by any means necessary.

“But you weren’t able to forget everything,” Kevin reminded Bobby. “Those memories have been a source of pain for a very long time. Elizabeth and Andy really want to help you.”

Bobby looked from one of them to the other and he took the drawings he had made and studied the first one. “Please don’t be mad at me,” he said. He handed the drawings to Elizabeth. Bobby moved away from her a bit when she took them. Drew stood behind her.

Elizabeth and Drew both studied each drawing. Jim and the hotel room. The unknown man and unknown girl. Jim with the girl. Bobby’s perspective of the unknown man’s hands. The wallpaper. The girl standing close to Bobby. The unknown man choking Bobby. Jim with a gun. Bobby covered in blood and flesh and a man with no head slumped against the wall. A girl with no face in the bed. Bobby was crossed out with a series of x’s. He had written “They’re all dead now,” on the last page.

Elizabeth set the drawings down and covered her mouth, completely horrified and afraid to speak. She didn’t know how to react, not with Bobby looking at her, waiting to be judged. She fought to keep her composure.

Drew was equally horrified and dumbstruck.

“They’re mad,” Bobby whispered to Kevin.

“They’re not mad,” Kevin told him.

“You don’t love me anymore,” Bobby said to Elizabeth. “I have to leave now.”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, yes. Yes, I love you. No, I don’t want you to leave.” She embraced him. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” She kept repeating the phrase and held him.

“You’re mad about the drawings?” Bobby asked, eventually.

“Not at you,” Elizabeth told him emphatically. “I’m sad. I’m heartbroken that you were subjected to that. I’m devastated. But it’s not your fault. You were a child who had no control. That evil man… what he did to you, let someone else do to you… I… you were a _child_. It’s unfathomable to me that anyone could do that.”

“I’m not lying,” Bobby defended himself. “ _I don’t lie_.”

Drew remembered Franco saying the same thing to Jim Harvey when he was alone with him in the hotel room after he had planted the listening device. “We believe you,” he said. “Jim Harvey is a liar. He was a horrible person. Everything he did was horrible. But he’s gone now. And he’s not going to hurt you again.”

“What do we do?” Elizabeth asked Kevin, desperate for a way to make this go away or get better.

“Bobby,” Kevin addressed him directly. “You did a really good job protecting Franco all these years. You did an amazing thing by telling us what happened. Franco has people who love him—the same people who love you. And they’re going to help him deal with what you had to hide for so long.”

Bobby nodded. “Okay.”

“You can tell him it’s safe to come back,” Kevin told Bobby.

“I know,” Franco said. His breaths were shallow compared to Bobby’s. He was anxious and felt over-exposed.

Elizabeth watched his subtle transformation. “Franco,” she hugged him as tightly as she could. “I will never stop loving you. You didn’t cause that, okay. Stop blaming yourself.”

“That kind of stuff shouldn’t happen,” Franco told her and Drew absently. “It’s not supposed to happen.”

“It’s not,” Drew sighed, agreeing. But the world was a place where terrible injustices like this happened every day. Children were used and abused and destroyed by adults. “I don’t even know if _sex trafficking_ was a phrase back then,” he said. “That’s clearly what was happening.”

“There were other hotel rooms,” Franco admitted in a very hushed voice. “Other men. I don’t know how many. I just know there were others.”

Elizabeth was crying.

“I’m sorry,” Franco apologized. “I shouldn’t have told you. It was a secret. He was right. It only hurts people I love.”

“It hurts because we love you,” Elizabeth assured him. “You are not responsible for what that horrible beast did to you. I will never love you any less because something bad happened to you. And, most of all, you do not have to protect me from the truth. I’m your partner in everything. Remember that.”

“I wish I had been there to stop him,” Drew lamented. “I wish I had helped.”

“He would have done the same things to you,” Franco told him. “He kept telling me he knew where you were. He told me he would go after you and hurt you or kill you. Don’t wish you were there. _I don’t wish you were there._ I made sure that he didn’t go after you. That counts for something, right?” Franco was practically pleading for approval of the secrets he had kept all these years.

Drew was overwhelmed with guilt and wanting to protect his brother. He didn’t know if Jim Harvey had really known where he was, but Franco had believed it and kept protecting him long after he was gone. “Of course, it counts,” Drew told him. “You’re the most loyal and protective brother anyone could ever have. I will always appreciate you. I owe you my life.”

“No,” Franco argued. “You don’t _owe_ me. I don’t want you to _owe_ me. I just want you to be my brother. I want you to remember me and I want you to love me.”

“Look, man,” Drew put his hand on Franco’s shoulder. “I don’t have to remember you to love you. I know you _now_. That’s enough. I know _you’re my brother_. You have got to believe that too. We’re not going to be separated again.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Elizabeth told him. “I may hold onto you for the rest of our lives.”

“It’ll be hard to get our jobs done…”

“I don’t care. I just want you to curl up in the bed with me and I want to talk about fairytales and capers we might have in foreign lands or even if we traveled across the country. I want to plan for our retirement with an RV and an adventure every day.”

“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Kevin told Drew.

Drew nodded. “Do you need anything?”

Franco shook his head. “Thanks. Thanks for tracking down Betsy and fighting for me.”

“I didn’t have to fight…”

“You did. You fought to keep my job and to keep Cameron out of trouble after that _incident_.”

Drew didn’t know how to respond. He nodded and patted Franco on his shoulder. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

“I will too,” Kevin promised. They left, stopping for a moment outside the house to discuss the impact of what had been revealed.

“Are you tired?” Elizabeth asked.

“Exhausted,” he replied.

“Then let’s go upstairs and dream about better tomorrows.”

Before they got to the stairs, Cameron closed the bathroom door. He had not gone to his room or put on his headphones. He flushed the toilet so it would seem like he had just been out of his room briefly. When he was sure he heard his parents’ bedroom door shut, he left the bathroom and slowly crept down the stairs, hoping none of them would creak. He saw the picture book on the table and took it, surprised that it had been left unattended.

Cameron had understood part of the story from what he heard, but he was completely unprepared for the pages that depicted Jim Harvey murdering a man and girl. He dropped the pictures, horrified.

“Why?” Franco’s voice asked from behind him.

Cameron jumped, startled by the unexpected company.

“I clearly did not want you to know about this.”

Cameron turned around with tears in his eyes. “I just, I just wanted to help. I promise. I wasn’t… trying to be hurtful. I wanted to help.” He openly cried at the revelation of what Franco had endured in his childhood. “I don’t know how to help with this,” Cameron admitted.

“It’s not a walk in the park for Dr. Collins either. And he’s a professional.” He took the pictures from Cameron. “I realized we left this on the table, and I needed to come down and get it.”

Cam surprised Franco, throwing his arms around him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry I made you remember this. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Franco let the pictures drop back on the table and returned Cameron’s hug. “You didn’t make this happen. I’ve been working through this for a while. Ever since Jim Harvey showed up wanting to buy my art studio.” He let Cameron go. “I can’t believe the sonofabitch actually had the gall to approach me after all these years. But, you know, it’s good that he did. I couldn’t live forever with all those secrets buried. It’s helped me understand a lot of the complications of my past.”

“I think you should stop,” Cam said, surprising Franco.

“Any specific reason why?”

“This is _horrible._ Like the worst thing that could happen. And you’ve got to stop drowning yourself in pain. You don’t deserve it. You already survived it once. You don’t have to do it again.”

Franco nodded. “Thanks,” he said, shocked by Cam’s words.

Cam gave him another quick hug. “Good talk,” he said. “Go to bed or mom is going to get worried.”

Franco nodded. “Yes, sir. Go to bed before you get in trouble for being up this late.”

Their eyes met with a mutual understanding that changed everything.


	9. There Is No Normal

Cam sat on a barstool in the Corinthos’ kitchen. “I owe you an apology,” he told Josslyn.

She was still annoyed with him for the situation he had caused her to be part of.

“I shouldn’t have done anything so stupid in the first place, much less while you were with me.”

“That’s for sure,” she told him.

“I’m glad you were there though,” he continued. “You knew the right thing to do and saw that it got done. I owe you one.”

“Just one?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm.

“Maybe a few.” He smiled, hoping to charm his way into forgiveness.

“Is everything back to normal now?” Joss asked, readily picking up where she had left off with her lifelong friend.

Cam sighed. “There is no normal. There never has been.”

“Is that good or bad?” Joss couldn’t read his inflection.

“Both. Neither. It’s complicated. I shouldn’t have done what I did to Franco. I should have trusted my mother’s judgment and I should have just paid attention to who he is with my mom and brothers and me. He is a good person, Joss. I should have trusted medicine and science and mostly my mother.

“I’m glad you think so,” she told him. “Did you ever find out why he was so upset when he was out of it?”

“Yeah. And it’s completely horrible. I kind of wish I didn’t know.”

“Completely horrible?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t talk about it. But it’s like the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Like his dad, or whoever he thought you were, did something bad?”

“Yeah. And his mom was…” He shook his head, trying to think of a way to describe Betsy. “As stupid as I ever thought my mom was, I was so arrogant and clueless. I realized how wrong I was about my mom. She’s smart and she deserves a lot more credit than I have given her—than anyone has given her. My mom is pretty bad ass to tell you the truth. She would never let anyone hurt me or my brothers.”

“And Franco?” Joss prodded.

“He’s very complicated. But he’s loving and always trying to protect people he cares about, whatever the cost. It turns out I’m lucky my mom married him. It’s just like Kiki said, all I had to do was give him a chance and I would see that he would love me as much as or more than any biological parent could.”

“Kiki?” Joss asked. “When did you talk to Kiki?”

Cameron was too embarrassed to tell her he had been conversing with ghosts. “Oh, a while back. When Mom and Franco were planning to get married. You know, she loved him as if he were her real father and Silas Clay popping into the picture briefly didn’t change that. He even paid for her medical school tuition. It’s sad that she got killed. She would have been a good doctor. When mom was ranting at me about possibly causing Franco to be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, she told me he had money set aside for me to go to college. Can you believe that, Joss? Someone actually cares about my future other than my mom.”

Joss had never had to consider paying for college herself. She had the mindset that that was just what parents do. She hadn’t really considered that Cam might not be able to go because of tuition costs. “That’s generous,” she said, considering for a moment how expensive it could be.

“I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to go to college. I don’t know that I would ever get a scholarship and the idea paying off student loans the rest of my life isn’t too appealing.”

“It really is a huge gift.”

“I kind of tend to forget that Franco has money,” Cameron told her. “I mean, mom isn’t about letting us have everything we want or anything. It doesn’t matter how much money Franco has from his art she would never let us have frivolous things. She wants us to stay grounded.”

“Do you think I’m not grounded?” Joss asked, defensive about her lot in life.

“I didn’t say that. But it is different. You know life is easier if you’re not worried about paying the electricity bill along with all the other problems that come along.”

Joss had no reason to deny that truth. 

“Really, Joss, we’ve both lived somewhat privileged lives. Some kids grow up in hell.”

Joss studied his demeaner. “Why do I think you’re talking about Franco?”

Cam was startled by her observation. There was no point in lying. “Yeah, I was.”

Her curiosity was piqued. “What happened? I’m trying to think of what _the most horrible thing ever_ would be.”

“I only know because I was snooping and eavesdropping,” Cam told her. “Franco told me to go to my room, shut the door, and put on my earbuds before he and my mom, Drew, and Dr. Collins talked about everything.”

“Dr. Collins made a house call?” she asked. “I thought that only happened on old movies.”

Cam just shrugged.

“It’s weird to me that Drew and Franco are like brothers, but Drew and Jason don’t really seem to get along, and Jason just hates Franco. I think Drew would rather be Franco’s brother than Jason’s.”

“As far as Drew is concerned, he and Franco are brothers.”

“But they didn’t actually grow up together and he doesn’t remember his life.”

“I think it’s more about what he knows than what he remembers.”

“I hate when people speak cryptically,” Joss complained. “You came over here, you’re talking about Franco, and I think you want to tell me whatever it is that you’re not telling me.” Patience was not among Joss’ virtues.

Cam sighed. “I kind of do. I kind of need a friend. But I would betray him so badly if I did.”

“You’ve been my friend forever. You totally supported me through Oscar’s illness and death and are still supporting me every day. I trust you and you can trust me.”

Cam was tempted to spill his burdens and let Joss help him deal with the knowledge he had. He held back.

“Cam, come on, I promise, I won’t say a word to anyone. Ever.”

“I don’t know…”

“I won’t let him know I know. I’ll be just the same as always. I mean, we have been friendly toward each other since I’ve been hanging out with you more.”

“You have to swear you won’t act weird around him,” Cam started. He looked at the ceiling. “This is so bad and it’s not my story to tell. He didn’t want me to know because he knew I couldn’t handle it.”

“Why can’t you handle it.”

“It pops that bubble we’re in, Joss. You know, the one where we think life is normal, and families are positive, and people have good intentions for the most part.”

“We know the world can suck…” Joss argued. Her sixteen-year-old boyfriend had recently died of cancer, after all.

“I’m just going to say this really fast okay.” He took a breath. “Franco’s mother’s boyfriend started sexually abusing him when he was three; he convinced Betsy that Franco was evil; he had Drew sent away; and he stayed with them for a few years. But, that’s not even the worst part. He was… he was like a sex trafficker and he took Bobby—that was Franco’s name when he was a kid—to seedy motels to let other people do things to him. But that’s not even the whole story. That man, he shot and killed another man and a twelve-year-old girl right in front of Franco—Bobby. He threatened to kill Bobby if he ever said anything about it.”

Joss just blinked, completely shocked by what she had heard.

Cam nervously waited for her to respond.

“Are you serious?”

Both teens nearly jumped out of their skin when Carly walked into the kitchen.

“Mom!” Joss was angry that she had been listening when she had just promised Cam that she would keep the secret. “How could you eavesdrop like that?”

“You spend time at Cameron’s house. If there’s any danger in that, I have a right to know,” Carly excused her overstepping her bounds.

“Damn it!” Cameron cursed. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. I wasn’t even supposed to know myself. Mrs. Corinthos, you cannot say anything to anybody about this.”

“Franco is not dangerous!” Joss yelled. “He treats me like you and Sonny treat Cam. You know, _help yourself to whatever is in the fridge._ _We’re ordering Chinese, what do you want? No, you cannot pay for your own._ He’s just a regular stepdad. Nothing creepy or scary or anything. He’s funny and makes me laugh.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Carly told her. She turned back to Cam. “Is what you said true?”

“Why would anyone make that up?” he asked. “I told Joss. He didn’t want me to know. He specifically told me to go upstairs and listen to music.”

“Rookie mistake,” Carly commented.

“What?” Joss asked.

“He’s relatively new to parenting and if he knew more about teenagers, he would have known telling Cam to go listen to music ensured that Cam was going to eavesdrop.” She looked at Joss. “You’d do the same thing. Don’t deny it.”

“Well, apparently so would you,” Joss snapped back.

Carly glared at her daughter who was very much like her. She could tell that the teens were upset that she had listened to their conversation. “I won’t tell anyone,” she promised.

“Have you ever successfully kept a secret?” Joss asked.

Carly gave it some thought. “There’s always a first time,” she shrugged.

“Don’t joke about it,” Cam told them, fearing that they would not keep their word.

“I’m sorry,” Carly apologized immediately. “I promise I was not making light of what happened to your stepfather.”

“You cannot talk about it,” Cam told her sternly. “I mean it. You can’t talk about it to anyone. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“No, Cam, you shouldn’t,” Carly told him. “You told Joss you need a friend to talk to because it’s too much for you to process on your own. And you have a friend. But I think you should tell your parents that you need to talk to them too. Maybe you need to talk to Dr. Collins. Joss has some issues with survivor’s guilt since Oscar died. She felt like she wasn’t allowed to be happy or to move on or do anything like normal kids do. I think you’re going through something similar because you realized that some kids are abused in ways that are unimaginable. Are you asking yourself how you got so lucky? Why didn’t Franco have a mother or father to protect him? Why do you have a mother and stepfather who protect you? What’s the difference? Is life really that random?”

“Yeah,” Cam nodded. “Yeah.” Carly’s statements were on target.

“Elizabeth and Franco would not want you to keep this to yourself when it’s eating at you. They want you to be happy. They would never want you to feel guilty because something happened to someone else. You had no more control of being born into your family than Franco had of being born into his situation. Joss isn’t equipped to help you handle something like this. And I’m not mad that you told her—don’t take it that way. Franco and Elizabeth need a professional to help _them_. Some things are almost unbearable, and this is one of those things. They have a lot more life experience than you do. They’ve seen darkness you haven’t, but they can’t do it alone either. Don’t suffer, Cameron. They don’t want that.”

“That sounds like pretty good advice, Mrs. Corinthos,” Cam told her.

“There’s more to me than great hair,” Carly joked. “Look, I have kids. I have stepchildren. I have step-grandchildren. There’s been a lot of drama around here. Between the kids, their significant others, and us, there have been some people with significant emotional burdens. Your parents don’t want you to let whatever you’re feeling fester until you act out and hurt yourself or someone else. But if you don’t tell then you’re having problems, they can’t help you. If you got your information by snooping and eavesdropping, they don’t know you need to deal with it. You may benefit from therapy.”

“Is it selfish of me to ask them for help when they’re also coming to terms with this?” Cameron asked her.

Carly smiled. “That’s not how parents think. You’re their priority—always. Do you think Elizabeth actually wants to watch monster truck rallies when you have the remote control?”

Cam grinned. “She does kind of zone out.”

“Because she loves you. So does Franco.” Carly saw Joss looking at her in a strange way. “What?” she asked her daughter.

“You’re being way more… nice than usual.” Joss had heard Carly rant about both Elizabeth and Franco on various occasions.

“I have a long history with both of those people and there’s a lot of water under that bridge. Elizabeth has never been more happy or confident. Anyone can see that. I believed Franco had changed when no one else did. But this is about Cameron.”

“Are you going to ask them to help you or to go to therapy with you?” Joss asked. Cameron nodded. “Yeah, I think I am. Thank you both.” He hugged Joss and her mother before making them both swear one more time that they would not discuss what they had heard with anyone.


	10. Primal Scream

“How are you?” Kevin asked. As promised, he returned to check on Franco around noon the next day.

Franco shrugged, “I guess I’m okay.” He was on the couch, dressed casually and leaning against a pillow. He was covered with a blanket, even though it was warm outside. “I think it’s taking a little longer than Lucas expected for me to completely shake the reaction I had to that _antibiotic_.” He referenced the lie, just because it was easier to say than the truth.

“How is Elizabeth handling things?” Kevin asked.

“You can ask her yourself,” Franco told him. Elizabeth was in the kitchen making a shopping list.

“I’m not listening,” Elizabeth called back from the kitchen.

Franco laughed. “Okay,” he replied a little louder than his normal voice. He turned his focus back to his therapist. “She’s incredibly strong.”

“You both are.”

“I haven’t talked to Drew today. I really hope you can help him get his memories back without any of that stupid flash drive nonsense.”

“I believe there’s hope,” Kevin assured him. He changed the subject back to the patient in front of him. “You don’t really strike me as doing as well as you say.”

He frowned. “Why is that?” Sometimes he regretted letting Kevin so far into his psyche.

“You are kind of curled into yourself, the way you do when you’re trying to physically get away from your memories.”

“I’m comfortable,” Franco said, but he knew Kevin wasn’t buying it. “Okay, I’m not that comfortable. I feel like a gigantic ball of ick.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“No. Everyone is different.”

“Okay—every time I feel like I have a grasp on what has influenced my horrendous life choices, I find out there’s more to the story. I’m sick of the story. I don’t want to find out that there’s anything else, but I have random flashes of memories. That’s been happening almost two years now. Isn’t there a stopping point?”

Kevin nodded. “I know it’s been difficult. But you couldn’t process the memories all at once. It would be debilitating. You’re further along than you were. Now you know when and why Jim Harvey left. It’s no longer an open-ended question of how long your mother allowed that monster to stay in your life.”

“This isn’t debilitated?” Franco asked, indicating himself. Kevin chuckled. “You’ve worked at Ferncliff. You know debilitated when you see it.”

“So, if I get the urge out of the blue to cower in a defensive position and scream at Jim Harvey to leave me alone, that’s…. _normal_?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say _normal_ , but it’s not atypical for someone who has been through this. Your normal is not everyone else’s normal.”

“Make it stop.” Franco requested. “I’m tired of remembering things that are maybe real or maybe not real. I just want the repressed memory valve switched to the off position.”

“I think that’s your brain working on integrating itself,” Kevin said. “And that is really something you would control, not me. In our session you talked about having dreams that were so realistic you questioned if they were indeed real. In your case, they may be—especially if they make sense in a way that a typical dream doesn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the dream was something that could have happened. You know, nothing about like moon bugs falling to earth or driving a car to Australia. Something like an intimate encounter with someone you don’t recognize.”

Franco was unsettled by the vulnerability he felt when Kevin said those true words.

“I have an exercise you can try,” Kevin started. “If you’re willing to consider it.”

“I’m willing to consider almost anything right now.”

“Tell Jim Harvey—or whoever else is in your memories—what you want to tell them, what you wanted to tell them as a child and what you want to tell them as an adult.”

“How would I even do that? Is there a cellular carrier that services hell?”

“You need to find your own voice,” Kevin told him. “You’ve used art to express yourself since you were a child—and that’s probably what has kept you alive. But you are hesitant to speak out loud about what you went through. As an art therapist, you know art speaks when words can’t. Maybe you need to find your words.”

“Talk to thin air?” Franco asked. It seemed insane.

“What do you have to lose?”

“My family. My freedom. My license to be a therapist. They’ll haul me off if they figure out that I’m crazier than my clients.”

“Who would tell them?” Kevin asked.

Franco thought about it, but he couldn’t make himself say anything. “This feels stupid.”

“Okay, I understand. You can’t spontaneously respond to something that you aren’t working through at this moment. So, tell me more about out-of-the-blue urges to tell Jim Harvey to go away.”

“It’s just exactly that. I may be sitting at the table and something flashes in my mind and I want to get away, but I have to just shake it off.”

“Why?”

“I think the kids might be alarmed if I started talking to people who aren’t there.”

“That’s reasonable—see you have more control than you tend to give yourself credit for. What if no one’s home?”

“It would be marginally less weird.” He paused. “No. No, it wouldn’t. Still weird.”

“Do you find it difficult to speak?” Kevin asked.

“No one has ever accused me of that,” Franco answered.

“I get that you can converse on numerous topics and you have a dry sense of humor so many people think you are more outgoing than you actually are. What I’m asking is do you have difficulty expressing real emotions out loud?”

“I’m getting better at it.”

“Progress over perfection,” Kevin told him. “I have some information that I want to share with you. I hope I didn’t step over any boundaries by getting it.”

“Like what boundaries?” Franco asked, wary of what the answer might be.

“Curtis Ashford is a PI. I asked him to see if he could find information about a man and young girl being shot in a hotel room in upstate New York during a time frame that I approximated the incident happened. I did not in any way tell him it had to do with you. I gave him the name Reginald but told him it might be irrelevant.”

Franco’s stomach felt like it was flip-flopping. He was hesitant to ask what Curtis had found. He looked to Elizabeth who really was not listening.

“Elizabeth,” Kevin called. “I think you need to hear this.”

She came and sat on the couch with Franco, taking the other half of his blanket and covering her legs with it. “What’s up?”

“A man named Reginald Holmes was shot in the head at a motel in Syracuse in July of 1984. There was a young girl found dead in the same room. She was later identified as Melanie Mancuso, who was kidnapped from a small town in Vermont in January of 1981.”

Franco felt a lump in his throat that seemed to be growing. He found it difficult to swallow. He was trying to process that the people in his memories were real people. The girl had a name. Jim Harvey had used the other man’s name to protect himself. Even though the information seemed to confirm what he had lived through, he felt like he was suffocating.

“Franco,” Elizabeth reached out to him. “Breathe,” she told him, seeing how the information had overwhelmed him. 

He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath. He kept his eyes closed behind his hands, blocking out the light and the world for a moment. _In through the nose, out through the mouth_ , he silently told himself in a singsong cadence like he had heard a Yoga instructor on television say it.

Elizabeth and Kevin waited, both realizing he was talking himself down from the initial shock of the information.

“Melanie,” he said. _The girl_ had a real name. “What happened with the investigation?”

“Dead ends. Jim Harvey must have cleaned away as much evidence as he could while you were waiting in the car. DNA wasn’t even a consideration at that time. The coroner determined that Melanie had been sexually assaulted repeatedly. Her age and birthmark on the back of her leg helped the police identify who she was. Reginald Holmes’ fingerprints were in the system because he had been convicted of child molestation several years prior and released. He was known to associate with a pedophile ring that operated through dive bar flyers under a cover name, Niagara Knights. It appeared like a role-playing game, but there were symbols used in the imagery that had significance to the people who knew what to look for. Without solid forensic evidence, no charges were ever filed. And, it appeared that the police kind of brushed it off as a murder not worth the resources it would take to investigate because no one cared that Reginald Holmes was wiped off the face of the earth.”

“What about Melanie?”

“Her body was returned to her family and she got a proper burial.”

“Niagara Knights.” He stated. “Anyone think there’s a relationship to Niagara Equities?”

Kevin sighed. “It’s possible.”

“I think it’s a little more than coincidental,” Franco told them. “Jim had an awful lot of revenue from somewhere.” He shivered, realizing he had been used to help finance Jim’s perversions.

“If the police knew there was this crime ring, why didn’t they stop it?” Elizabeth asked, thinking of all the children that could have been helped.

“It was difficult to infiltrate the group, and no one was really leaving a digital footprint back then. People were harder to trace, and evidence was more difficult to get. It appears the ring dissipated after Holmes was killed, leading the police to believe he was the brains behind it.”

“Hopefully they’re all dead by now,” Elizabeth said.

“Does this help you at all?” Kevin asked.

He nodded, then shook his head as if he couldn’t decide how to answer. “I guess it’s real.”

“You guess?” Elizabeth asked.

“There’s always been a nagging voice in my mind that told me I was a liar, that I made it all up, that I was evil… all the things that Jim Harvey told me. Even though he confessed, even though I talked to other victims, there was part of me that was stubbornly blaming myself for making him do what he did.”

“Well, stop that!” Elizabeth told him.

“You would think it would be a relief to tell myself it wasn’t my fault, right?” he asked. “I think that as long as I blame myself, I have some illusion of control. Maybe part of me would rather be evil than helpless.” It was a brutally honest and introspective confession. “When you admit that you had no control at all in a situation, the world becomes an even scarier place. Anything could go wrong at any time. So, I blame myself for being abused and at the same time expect my world to crumble if I make a mistake like a control freak who has no control over anything whatsoever.”

“That’s what we call generalized anxiety disorder,” Kevin commented. “And post- traumatic stress disorder. Major depressive disorder.”

“You can stop there,” Franco told him, making Elizabeth laugh.

Kevin looked surprised by her reaction.

“She knew what she was getting when she proposed to me.” He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe not everything she was getting.”

“I’m still here anyway,” Elizabeth reminded him with a quick kiss on his forehead. “And I’m not leaving.”

“Neither am I,” he promised her.

“Well, I probably should,” Kevin said. “I hope you can process everything, and you know how to reach me if you need any help whatsoever.” He stood up.

“Thanks, Doc.” Franco told him. He didn’t bother to walk with Kevin and Elizabeth to the door. He closed his eyes and chanted his breathing mantra to himself. He thought of Melanie and hoped that if there was a heaven, she was there free from all the bad memories of her short time on earth.


	11. Family Therapy

Elizabeth opened the door to let Kevin leave and saw Cameron reaching for his key. “Have you been eavesdropping?” she asked in an accusatory tone.

Cameron was stunned, not expecting his mother to open the door at that exact moment or to ask him about eavesdropping. “Um…. yes. But not now. Last night.”

Elizabeth sighed and closed her eyes. She clenched her jaw shut to keep from saying something in anger. Her emotions were raw, and she could be volatile if pushed. She made every attempt to not speak to her children in anger. She found it was more difficult as the boys got older and pushed more boundaries.

“Dr. Collins, do you think you could stay?” Cameron asked. “I need to talk to you and my parents.”

Kevin was surprised by Cam’s request. “Sure,” he answered. “If it’s okay with your mother.”

Elizabeth nodded. She would never have refused one of her kids’ pleas for help.

Cam went to the couch and sat with Franco, pushing the entire blanket to him. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Franco shrugged. “You?”

“I kind of need to talk,” Cam answered.

Kevin returned to the chair he had just left, and Elizabeth sat on the other side of her son.

“What’s wrong?” Franco asked Cam.

Cam looked from his stepfather to Kevin to his mother. “I _was_ eavesdropping last night. And I came downstairs after everyone left and I found the drawings. I have a pretty good idea of what happened.” He knew immediately from Elizabeth’s reaction that Franco had not told her about their conversation the night before. He wasn’t sure if he had purposely not told her to protect him or to protect her. But he was somewhat confident at this point that Franco was trying to protect someone.

Elizabeth’s eyes flashed with anger, disappointment, and concern at the same time. “You were told to go to your room for a reason,” she said slowly. “For your own protection.”

“I know,” Cam responded. “But I’m not that bright.”

Franco couldn’t help but snicker, but he tried to disguise it as a weird partial sneeze.

“I get it that you were trying to protect me from the awful truth. But I dived into it anyway. And now I know why you didn’t want me to know, because I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“You don’t have to deal with it,” Franco told him. “I never intended to burden you or anyone else—”

“It’s not a _burden_ ,” Cam corrected him. He sighed. “Okay, it’s a bit of a burden. But not like _I don’t want to know so I don’t have to help_. Like _now that I do know, how can I help because I do want to help_.”

“You’re too young—” Franco started.

“You had to deal when you were three,” Cam interrupted. “At three you were protecting your brother. I’m sixteen. If you can protect your brother at three, I can help my dad at sixteen.”

Franco’s defenses were destroyed every time Cameron referred to him as his _dad_. “I _had_ to cope at three. I’m not sure any of us could say I did a very good job of it either. You don’t have to take this on.”

“I can’t forget it. I can’t unknow it. I can’t ignore that you’re dealing with some heavy shit—sorry, Mom.” He apologized for cursing. “I get it. You didn’t want to make it my business because it’s embarrassing and difficult and horrible, but _I_ made it my business. So, I’ve got to man up and be part of this coping process with you and Mom. There are consequences to actions, right, Mom?”

“This is really not appropriate,” Elizabeth told him. She wanted to shelter her children from these horrors of life.

“Do you think I’ve never watched an _SVU_ marathon?” Cam asked. “I know bad people do horrible things. I just never had it in _my own life_ like this. And, yes, it’s in my life because we’re a family.”

Kevin sat silently, unwilling to interrupt while the family were working through their issues on their own.

“I’m not saying we should bring in Jake and Aiden. Obviously, I understand now why you thought I was too young to be part of the conversation and they certainly are. There are two things we need to talk about. I need help dealing with this. And what can _I_ do to help both of you? It’s like there’s something in my chest that wants to break out and go back in time and stop Jim Harvey from ever meeting that dingbat Betsy. I want to make this not real.” He saw the expression on Franco’s face—full of sadness and love at the same time. “I probably shouldn’t have called your mother a _dingbat_. Sorry.”

Franco shrugged and tried to laugh. “She is kind of a dingbat. But she was kind and trusting. Too kind and trusting. She’s not Heather, at least.”

“How can we help you cope?” Elizabeth asked. Now that she knew that Cameron was seriously asking for help, that took precedence over everything else.

“I’m not sure,” Cam answered. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“What are you feeling?” Franco asked. “Aside from wanting to go back in time, that is. I think everyone who has something horrible happen fantasizes about going back and changing history at some point. That’s not unhealthy unless you stay in the past. You have to accept that the past can’t be changed.”

“Okay, like seriously….” Cam’s voice was soft. “I think about what that man did to you. And you suffered. And like…” He was hesitant to tell them the truth.

“It’s okay,” Elizabeth told him. “What do you want to say?”

“I’m worried about Aiden. I mean, if he’s actually gay, is he going to suffer?”

“Wow,” Elizabeth exhaled slowly. That nine-hundred-pound elephant just came right to the forefront of their living room. She looked to Franco and Kevin. “Maybe you two should take that one.”

Kevin felt it was time he entered the conversation. “Well, Cameron, Aiden isn’t three. And when he begins to explore his own sexuality, he will be at an age where it is his decision and something he’s doing consensually. He will, we assume, have an age appropriate _partner_. And I stress partner. Bobby was assaulted by a predator who _wanted_ to hurt him, someone who valued his own pleasure far more than he cared about any child’s suffering. If your brother pursues a relationship with a man, he will be with someone with whom he can experience a mature, pleasurable relationship. We hope. No one can predict the future any more than they can change the past.”

Cam grimaced. They were talking about his little brother, after all.

“Thank you,” Franco told Kevin. He knew he would have sputtered, stuttered, mumbled, and failed miserably if he tried to convey what Kevin had.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, lamenting how quickly her children were growing up. “Consent makes all the difference in the world.”

“I guess so,” Cam agreed. “I just don’t get it. Like, am I horrible for not understanding why Aiden isn’t into girls?”

“No, you’re not horrible,” Elizabeth told him. “You can’t adjust your preferences to understand his. I hate avocados. I’ve tried to eat avocados. I’ve tried to eat guacamole. Other people love avocados and praise their healthy fat. I just see and taste yucky green mush.”

“You don’t even have to _try_ avocados to _know_ you don’t like them,” Franco added. “And that’s okay too.”

“I don’t like avocados. Definitely.”

Franco smiled. “Me either.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the way the men in her life were able to twist her words. “You know, I was talking about _actual avocados_.”

“We know,” Cam grinned.

“About your brothers,” Elizabeth started. “We need you to keep this to yourself. They may find it frightening to learn that Franco has the dissociative disorder. And we all agree that they cannot know what happened when he was a kid.”

Cam nodded, feeling guilty about talking to Joss, which allowed Carly to overhear what he said. He was afraid to admit he had had that conversation. “What happens if the other identity shows up? What do I do?”

“I don’t think it will,” Franco told him. He looked to Kevin.

“I also think it’s unlikely. The hallucination brought the protective alter to the forefront and the protective alter allowed Bobby to come forward and tell his story.” Kevin added. “Franco’s mind has been integrating itself for a while. The alters are there to handle threats.”

“That’s so weird,” Cam said aloud, without thinking. He realized what he said and was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you’re weird.”

“ _Weird_ is just another word for _fascinating_ ,” Franco told him. “Right, Kevin?”

“Sure,” Kevin agreed. He felt positive observing that this family could discuss heavy issues with a little levity and a whole lot of love.

“We need you to communicate with your brothers,” Franco told Cam. “By that, I mean, show interest in their lives. Ask them about their day. There are things that little boys would never tell their mom or dad, but they might tell their brother. I hope to God Jake and Aiden never have anything so horrible to tell anyone. But make sure your brothers know that you have their back 100%.”

“And make sure they know that we love them and will protect them no matter what. Make sure they know we will never stop loving them for any reason,” Elizabeth added. “We have already seen Aiden being bullied. Don’t let Jake or Aiden ever forget their parents love them unconditionally and we want to protect them unconditionally. And the same goes for you too, my not-too-bright sixteen-year-old mini-adult.” She kissed his forehead, much to Cam’s annoyance.

“Kevin, Cameron told me something last night that I’ve been thinking a lot about. He suggested that maybe I should just let it go. He asked me to stop torturing myself. We can see that my memories are painful for everyone.”

“You talked to Cam last night?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah, when I came downstairs to get the drawings. I didn’t mention it because… well… a lot of reasons.” He had wanted to spare Elizabeth more things to worry about. He wanted to spare Cameron getting into trouble. He was just too tired to keep talking.

“I understand,” Elizabeth replied. She could think of several reasons why Franco had not mentioned it without his having to explain it. “So, Cam just told you to stop trying to remember?”

“Yeah. I guess I’ve been looking at this like a building project. Like I can’t leave out the details. I have to lay the foundation before putting on the roof.”

“Is that what you need? Again, no wrong answer.” She didn’t want him to think she was trying to guide him to a certain conclusion. But she wondered if he had ever considered before now that hypnosis and finding the whole truth was _optional_.

Kevin rephrased her question. “Do you believe you need to know as much as you can?”

Franco thought about it. “I’m tired,” he answered. “I’m exhausted. I don’t think I can handle it if there are more memories.”

“I’ve told you this before, but it bears repeating. Sometimes this search for truth can move past being therapeutic into becoming damaging.”

“I need a break,” Franco decided. “At least a break.”

“I am very glad to hear you advocate for your needs,” Kevin told him. “You wouldn’t have done that two years ago.”

Franco shrugged. “You’re probably right about that.”

“My door is always open to you,” Kevin reminded him. “If you ever need to talk, about anything. I will help you in any way I can.” He turned to Elizabeth and Cameron. “The same goes for both of you. Or all of you together.”

“You’ve changed my life,” Franco told Kevin.

Kevin shook his head. “No, Franco. _You_ changed your life. I only helped you along a bit. I don’t have the power to change you or anyone else. That comes from you. Your effort. Your dedication. Your love for your family.”

“I’m sure we’ll talk soon,” Franco told him. He felt like it was a goodbye in a small way. The more he considered foregoing any further hypnosis, the less emotional weight he felt. He would continue to talk to Kevin to keep himself on the right path. But this digging for horrible memories was over and he was relieved that it was. “Thanks for all your help.”

Kevin stood. “It has been my privilege to help you.” He shook hands with Franco and Cam and nodded toward Elizabeth. “Remember, my door is always open. I’ll see myself out.”

“This not remembering everything idea is brilliant,” Franco told his wife and son with the first sincere smile he had had in a long time. “I really don’t have to remember everything,” he marveled. “I don’t remember if I liked pizza in second grade. It hasn’t really affected my life, right?”

“I’m going to guess you did,” Elizabeth giggled.

“There were some important things I was not ready face, but I might drive myself crazy—crazier—if I keep mining for… wholeness.”

“Are you broken?” Elizabeth asked.

He gave that question a lot of thought before settling on an answer. “I was,” he decided. “Definitely was. But I got a patch job. Oil change. Had my tires rotated, got some new brake pads…”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t even want to know what metaphor you think you’re making.” She got burnt out on sports and automotive talk years ago. _I need a daughter_ , she thought, but kept it to herself. She was beginning to long for another child as she realized her babies were all growing up too quickly.

He laughed. “I’m just saying it took a lot of work.”

Cam got up. “I think I’m going upstairs so you two can talk.”

They both nodded and Elizabeth moved closer to her husband. “Has it been worth the work?” She played with his hair.

“I wouldn’t be here with you, married to you if I hadn’t done the work.”

“That’s true,” she told him.

“You’re worth all the work in the world. You and our family.”

She kissed his forehead.

“Can you take me with some bruises and bandages?”

“I already have,” she reminded him. “We all have scars, wounds, brokenness. We just have to figure out how to get through it and be the best we can for the kids, each other, and ourselves.”

“You’re really smart,” he told her.

She laughed. “This is so inappropriate for me to laugh at,” she started.

“I like inappropriate,” he said in a low voice, aware that they were not completely alone in the house.

“I know you do,” she kissed his cheek. “Has Kevin told you that you’re like genius level smart?”

He was surprised. “Um… no. I mean, he said something like I was _remarkable_ at four. I don’t know. I don’t remember compliments very well.”

She laughed with more enthusiasm.

“What?”

“I wish you heard him talking about your cognitive skills.” She had to stop talking to laugh.

“You’re not instilling a sense of security right now,” he feigned being insulted.

“He gets so excited about it. Like a really geeky professor who’s way too enthusiastic about his subject matter.”

Franco chuckled. “I have gotten the impression—well he flat out told me I was very interesting client. I think he thinks he hit a psychiatric oil field.”

‘Yeah,” Elizabeth agreed. “You’re so adorable,” she told him. “I imagine you as a little genius four-year-old. I wonder what you would have been like without all the horrible things in your life.”

“Bill Gates?” he suggested with a laugh. “Honestly, I wonder about that too—not so much what I would have been like as a kid, but what I would have been like as an adult. If Andy never went away. If someone knew me well enough to realize I was sick. I even wonder if I would have turned into that horrible person…” he stopped cold.

“Yeah, I know. Would you have been a killer if you hadn’t had Jim Harvey in your life. It’s even more of a _what if_ now that we know he killed two people right in front of you.”

He frowned, momentarily remembering the feel of the dead man’s flesh and blood covering him. “Let’s go back to talking about how smart you are,” he suggested.

“It’s okay to wonder,” Elizabeth told him. “It doesn’t change what happened, but it does cast a different light on it.”

He cringed. “I wish I wasn’t that person.”

“So, you changed,” Elizabeth reminded him. “You didn’t want to be that person anymore. You used the second chance you got to do something better with your life.”

“I’m hardly the first person to make use of a second chance—look at you, Ms. Single Mom Put Herself Through Nursing School. That could not have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” she sighed. It took her aback. No one ever really pointed out her achievements to her before Franco came along. She felt a little bit of pride, realizing he noticed. He had the most amazing way of making her feel like she was somebody worth being loved.

“Did you ever want to keep going, to be a doctor like your dad?”

She inhaled. “I don’t think there’s much I wanted to do like my dad. My grandmother was a nurse, one of the greatest nurses General Hospital ever had. I wanted to be like her.”

“She’s so proud of you.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Did I ever tell you when she finally gave me her approval of you?”

“No, you didn’t.” He sat up a bit. “And why have you waited?”

She laughed. “Well, I didn’t want you to think she didn’t like you.” She paused, realizing he was very eager to hear the answer. “It was Aiden. When you got Aiden to talk about how he liked to bake and went right to the kitchen to start baking. She said you had natural instincts on the right thing to say and do for a child. She knew you had helped Jake, but that could have been a fluke because it was your job. But when you got Aiden to start accepting that he was special and had talents of his own… that’s when she knew you were dad material and you had to be dad material to be husband material for me.”

Franco smiled, incredibly happy to know that Audrey approved of him. That was a golden stamp of approval.

“What are you thinking about?” Elizabeth asked. He had been quiet for a few minutes.

“I don’t want Bobby to come back. It’s weird… going away. Then coming back and all this stuff has happened while you weren’t looking. I know we just told Cam that it probably wouldn’t happen. I hope we were telling the truth, but we can’t know for sure. That scares me.”

“Bobby had a purpose,” Elizabeth reminded him. “I think he’s fulfilled that purpose.”

“What if there are more? Kevin has been telling me about how there are all these different types of alters—fragments, opposite gender, gatekeepers, dead alters, animals, children who don’t grow up, children who do grow up.”

“I’ve been reading about it,” Elizabeth admitted. “It is daunting. It’s also believed to be under-diagnosed because some psychiatrists don’t believe it exists and some people get through life well enough that problems aren’t so overtly manifested. I think you were probably one of those people who would not have been diagnosed without the recent setback.”

“Kevin said that I have likely been—making repairs, I guess you would say—since I began therapy. You know, like having completely blocked out Jim Harvey in the first place. That was probably an alternate. I guess having a brain tumor confounded my diagnosis with the memory issues.”

“You are confounding, all right,” Elizabeth agreed.

“Hey,” he pretended to be upset.

“I say it with love,” she promised.

“At least I’m not boring, right?”

“No, definitely not boring,” Elizabeth kissed his neck. 

His mind wandered for a second, as he realized Elizabeth wanting to entice him into some amorous quality time. “We should send Ava a nice bottle of wine,” he commented.

Elizabeth stopped nibbling on his neck. “Well, that was random.”

“Not as random as you think. I’ll explain later. Right now, I think you missed a spot here.” He pointed to his shoulder and she kissed the spot. “And here,” he added pointing to the other side. After another little nibble he said, “And there’s this whole space from here to here.”

Elizabeth often enjoyed telling him exactly what she wanted or needed. This time she was enjoying following his lead. She relished giving him the safety and security of their physical intimacy—two people who would never hurt one another.

Somehow the insanity that had brought them together and surrounded them had created the healthiest relationship either had ever had. They would have years to navigate this adventure together, starting with a trip upstairs.

\--END--


End file.
